Why Study Religions?

The faculty of the Religion department helps students to grasp the stunning diversity of faith traditions of the past and present from around the globe. Religion students become experts in interdisciplinary methods of study and analysis, learning how to interpret textual, archaeological, visual, and material evidence.

Our typically small classes allow faculty to work closely with students and get to know them as scholarly colleagues in the study of the world’s religions, especially in the two courses required of every Major (see below.)

Students in Religion also take elective courses in many other departments in order to investigate, discuss, and interpret religious phenomena in a cross-cultural, historical, and interdisciplinary perspective.

No matter what our students decide to do with their education and which careers they choose, we prepare students in the religion program to leave USC with all the skills that creative, capable, thinking citizens need to negotiate in our fast-changing world.