The School of Humanities and Social Sciences fosters a challenging and supportive academic environment for deep engagement with ideas and action across a wide range of liberal arts disciplines. Through close, collaborative faculty mentorships, our students are empowered to apply their knowledge to understanding human experience and addressing human interests. Our students graduate with an intellectual and ethical foundation that is transferable across career fields and indispensable to productive lives of thoughtful, responsible citizenship.
Scholarship and Academics
Community of scholars: Ours is the largest of the eight schools at TCNJ, fostering vibrant intellectual engagement among 2,000 students and more than 100 faculty members across 11 academic departments. Our scholarly community has two dedicated buildings, the Social Science Building and Bliss Hall Annex.
Majors and minors: Our students explore an exciting array of majors and minors across these disciplines: African American studies; anthropology; classical studies; criminology; English; history; international studies; philosophy; political science; psychology; religion; sociology; women’s, gender and sexuality studies; and world languages and culture.
Custom curricula: Our students craft personalized educations to support career goals and scholarly interests through self-designed majors, interdisciplinary programs, and specializations within their majors. Plus our Undeclared HSS program allows students to explore broadly across the curriculum before declaring a major.
Professional pathways: Aspiring teacher? Our school collaborates with the School of Education on teacher certification programs at all school levels. Aspiring lawyer? Our school is a major partner of the prelaw program at TCNJ. Aspiring doctor? Our school participates in the seven-year accelerated medical program at TCNJ.
Signature Experiences
Small, faculty-taught classes: With no large lecture halls and no teaching assistants, our classes are always small and always taught by faculty members, ensuring close mentorship by exceptional teacher-scholars.
Personal, collaborative, rigorous education: Student-faculty relationships sprout in the classroom and strengthen into productive, collaborative partnerships through faculty-mentored research, faculty-led travel-study courses, and faculty-guided fieldwork and civic engagement experiences.
Transformative experiential learning: Our flexible curriculum provides students maximum opportunity to pursue study abroad, internships, undergraduate research, and civic engagement—the kind of motivational learning that changes lives and shapes careers.
Community culture: Our scholarly community fosters a rich intellectual culture for students and faculty alike, hosting guest speakers; presenting research symposia and panel discussions; and organizing a year-round slate of events, including an international film festival, Celebration of Student Achievement, the Politics Forum, the War of the Words debate competition, and more.
Career Foundation
Flexible career skills: Times and technologies change, but the value of a liberal arts education never wavers. Our school teaches a core skillset that is transferable across career fields and indispensable to productive lives and citizenship: critical thinking and complex problem solving; clear written and oral communication; research and information literacy; ethical judgment and intercultural competency; and the lifelong capacity to innovate and apply new knowledge in every situation.
High-quality internships: Meaningful, constructive work experiences are built into our curriculum, embedded into our courses or arranged with the guidance of a faculty adviser to complement each student’s academic interests and career goals.
Strong career services: Working with the expert staff of TCN’s Career Center, our students learn to effectively market their skills and experiences—including research, internships, study abroad, and civic engagement—in landing a first job or earning admission to a top graduate school.