This four-course certificate provides students with the opportunity to recognize and value connections between humanities studies and their personal and professional goals. 

Students will engage with transformative texts—influential writings from diverse cultures and time periods—and participate in discussions about questions of justice, human rights, politics, the environment, the role of technology and corporate culture, and the place of arts and culture in their lives. 

Students will think creatively and critically about the idea of “the good life” and how this relates to what it means to be human. This mode of critical and creative thinking can become a basis, or cornerstone, of students’ lives while at UMass or in future workplaces.

Four Pathways

Students in this certificate program will take two general education courses (100-300 level) selected from 1 of 4 pathways: 

  • Business and the Humanities
  • Environment and the Humanities
  • Science/Technology and the Humanities
  • Global Studies and the Humanities