Knowledge & Skills Gained
Applying What You Learn
In his message to the students in the College of Arts and Sciences, Dean Boocker explains the importance of "making knowledge matter." We believe that means helping you develop useful, real-world skills alongside the sense of fulfillment and enrichment that a major in Women's & Gender Studies can provide.
We also believe in making you aware of the knowledge and skills you're developing along the way, so that you can capitalize on your strengths in the marketplace, graduate school and in life.
- Students learn about gender, sexual difference, masculinity and femininity. Courses examine the intersections of gender with race/ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic class, ability levels, sexuality, and additional dimensions of difference. Faculty bring knowledge from a variety of disciplines to bear on problems that face diverse people in different places and circumstances.
- Women’s and Gender Studies majors learn to identify, articulate and analyze subtle, as well as overt, cultural practices that promote and even institutionalize specific notions around gender, sexuality, and sexual orientation.
- Graduates of the Women’s and Gender Studies program understand the differences that gender makes in peoples’ economic, social, and political lives. They can identify and articulate changes that could improve peoples’ lives, based on gender differences.
- Graduates of the Women’s and Gender Studies program are aware of the links between gender identity and expression, and sexual orientation. They appreciate how gender is constructed differently in different places and how women’s vulnerability varies from country to country as well as within countries.
- Our graduates have highly developed reading, writing, and oral communication skills especially concerning women’s and gender issues. They are good researchers and are comfortable talking about a wide variety of related topics. They can build logical arguments using scholarly evidence.
- Women’s and Gender Studies graduates analyze all kinds of texts, from screenplays to novels, advertisements and music lyrics. They can think critically about language, gender, and culture to explain the overt and covert meanings of these texts.
- Our graduates can solve problems that arise when different notions of gender or sexuality collide in homes, workplaces and communities. They appreciate the value of diverse perspectives grounded in different lived experiences and can help to identify common ground.