The Social Studies Option (SSO) provides students with interdisciplinary perspectives on the nature of human interactions, and how societies function. Choosing this Option allows students to study the political, historical, cultural, and economic dynamics of social interactions from a variety of theoretical and pragmatic frameworks. Students will develop the skills to ask critical questions, improve their reading comprehension, write in multiple disciplines, and become better problem solvers, which are marketable skills for a wide variety of careers and academic majors.

Students who complete this Option could transition into the following academic majors: History, Political Science, and Economics; and the following careers: Education, Politics, Educational or Political Consulting, Public History, and others that value strong reasoning and writing skills.

In addition to any courses taken as part of the Common or Flexible Core, students must take one (1) course from each of the four (4) tiers below:

Tier 1
SOC 101—Introduction to Sociology (3 credits) OR PSY 101—Introduction to Psychology (3 credits)

Tier 2
ECO 101—Microeconomics (3 credits) OR ECO 102—Macroeconomics (3 credits)

Tier 3
POL 101—Introduction to American Government (3 credits) OR HIS 210—US History through the Civil War (3 credits)

Tier 4
HIS 211—US History: Reconstruction to the Present (3 credits)
HIS 214—Modern African American History (3 credits)
LAW 101—Law and Social Change (3 credits)
SOC 140—Race and Ethnicity (3 credits)
WGS 100—Introduction to Women’s Studies (3 credits