BA Women’s Studies

Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary program designed to foster students’ personal and intellectual development and to prepare them for socially responsible citizenship as well as a broad range of careers. The program is offered by Portland State University.

An expanding field of scholarship, women’s studies is on the cutting edge of educational and intellectual innovation. Courses offered through many different disciplines explore how gender has shaped culture, language, social, economic, and political institutions and what the world looks like, once women’s experience is fully included in our thinking. The women’s studies core curriculum encourages students to develop critical thinking skills and an appreciation for the range of theoretical frameworks and methodologies present in contemporary feminist scholarship.

Courses incorporate the diversity of women’s experience with attention to race, class, and sexual orientation as well as gender. Core courses also demand and support students’ active participation through discussion, informal as well as formal writing, and collaborative learning in the classroom.

Experiential learning plays an important role in a student’s progress through the women’s studies curriculum. The program’s extensive and long-established ties with organizations in the metro area provide wide-ranging opportunities for students to apply their classroom knowledge in a community setting.

Many students discover a life’s vocation through these experiences, and all develop new skills. Guidelines for women’s studies internships, practica, and independentstudy are flexible in order to meet individual needs. A degree in women’s studies provides the foundation for life-long learning as well as background and experience for careers in teaching, counseling and social work, business, law, health sciences, public administration, public relations, and research.

Women’s Studies students participate in planning the program’s educational, cultural, and social events and advise the faculty on matters of curriculum and educational policy. The program also maintains a resource library open to all students.

Your Potential To Be Exponential

At Portland State University , you feel like you’re part of a movement. The kind that keeps your classmates rooting for you and your professors pulling for you. You’ll form bonds with faculty and friends in small classes that dive deep into the issues that matter most to you. We are proud to be one of the nation’s most transformative universities. Because every time your success inspires others, you change the world.