Undergraduates Major and Minor

Our staff are currently working on a hybrid work schedule, working both remotely and in person throughout the week. If you need academic counseling from our Student Affairs Officer, Annie Carpenter, we encourage you to email her during regular business hours, which are 8 am – 12:00 pm, and 1:00 pm – 5 pm Mondays through Fridays (excluding holidays). The SAO is available for in person appointments, calls, or virtual meetings (on Zoom) but we ask for you to email her beforehand to set up a time to talk during regular business hours. Thank you for your patience.

If you are an undergraduate major and have questions regarding academics and/or policies through the Art History department, you can also use the MessageCenter on your MyUCLA portal. To do this, you will select the yellow “Need Help” tab in the upper right corner of your MyUCLA, and click “Ask a Question.

Required Courses in Preparation for the Major: Two courses from Art History 20 through 25 and two courses from Art History 27 through 31. It is strongly recommended that these courses be taken prior to enrollment in upper division courses. Note that some of these courses serve as prerequisites for certain upper division courses.

The department strongly encourages completion of the general education requirements in conjunction with preparing for the major. While the department does not require language training beyond the college requirement, we strongly encourage art history majors, particularly those planning graduate work, to study foreign languages beyond what is required by the College.

The honors program is designed for Art History majors who are interested in carrying out an independent research project that culminates in a departmental honors thesis of approximately 30 pages. The program gives qualified students the opportunity to work closely with individual professors on an in-depth supervised research and writing project.

All senior Art History majors who have completed a minimum of six upper division art history courses with a departmental grade-point average of 3.5 or better and an overall GPA of 3.0 or better are eligible to apply. Consult Student Affairs Annie Carpenter no later than the beginning of Fall Quarter of the senior year.

The Art History minor is designed for students who wish to augment their major with a series of courses that analyze the history, theory, and criticism of diverse visual traditions in world culture. On the lower division level, the minor exposes students to overviews of these traditions in broad time periods from ancient to modern, from the regional to the global, as well as to courses that trace the historical significance of art in the context of specific thematic and media concerns. Upper division courses offer more specialized content that explores crucial episodes or areas with more intense and rigorous theoretical and methodological strategies.

To enter the minor students must be in good academic standing with an overall grade-point average of 2.0 or better, have completed 45 units, and file a petition with Student Affairs Officer Annie Carpenter in Dodd Hall 206B. Students are advised to declare the minor early and meet with the student affairs officer to plan a coherent program.