Together you and an American studies professor will decide upon the courses that will help you develop your interests into disciplined study. For example, you may decide it's important to take an economics course to better understand the process of buying and selling music. Because of the interdisciplinary focus of the major, students learn that there is more than one way to solve a problem. They also discover that many different solutions can be integrated into the explanation of the complex American experience. The department believes off-campus study is important because it allows students to better understand their own culture by seeing another.
Majors often have opportunities to study with faculty members on research projects.
Additional student research will play an important role in an upcoming book on contemporary Jewish culture in Iowa. Grinnell also is home to a plethora of student-run and organized groups that may be of interest to American studies majors, including the American Studies Student Educational Policy Committee, Concerned Black Students, Alternate Break, Alternative Happy Hour, Students in Defense of Animals and the Environment, Environmental Action Group , Grinnellians Escalating AIDS Response , and Poverty Action Now. In addition, the American studies department makes special efforts to provide visiting speakers, colloquia, and field trips to living history sites and libraries to give additional perspectives on American culture. Also of interest to American studies majors is the Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights, which organizes conferences and campus visits by distinguished scholars, public servants, and political spokespersons. The program has sponsored lectures and panel discussions on technology and democracy, and has sponsored the visits of Ambassador George E. Moose '66, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, and former foreign service officer Ann Stanford.