The College of Arts and Sciences at Penn is the heart and soul of this great university. 

Each and every day I see extraordinary students and faculty working together in pursuit of fundamental knowledge, puzzling through the big questions that have awakened human curiosity across the centuries. Our wide-ranging and rigorous curriculum aims to sharpen the minds that will press the boundaries of discovery for our own time.

The curiosity-driven education of the College of Arts and Sciences is the best possible preparation for a post-graduate landscape that continues to change with increasing speed. Work in our classes strengthens your ability to embrace complexity and adapt to new circumstances. It builds agility through foundational training in many modes of thinking. It builds connection through sustained engagement across different points of view. It expands your sense of the possible through wide-ranging opportunities in internships, research, and service that enable you to put your learning into practice to make the world a better place.

As you develop advanced understanding in your major field of study, alongside our world-class faculty, you will hone your ability to spot the difference between reliable, durable knowledge and today’s proliferating array of content that pretends to be knowledge.

This kind of education is about much more than a set of skills, it’s about giving you agency to shape the world you will enter. While all knowledge makes new things possible, fundamental knowledge makes new worlds possible.

Welcome to the College!

Peter T. Struck
Stephen A. Levin Family Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences