How to Major in Religious Studies at Ohio State Admission to the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences confers eligibility for the major in religious studies. Often, students decide upon the religious studies major after having taken course work introducing them to the academic study of religion. The religious studies major is an individualized, interdisciplinary program, and students themselves are expected to participate in the process of constructing a curriculum by choosing both course work in the Division of Comparative Studies and course work selected from a list of specified classes offered by other departments. The curriculum that a student designs, in consultation with the religious studies adviser, will be coherent and focused, but will also give the opportunity to study several different religious traditions, as well as different approaches to the academic study of religion. The GEC is a body of courses designed to ensure that each student becomes acquainted with the basic areas of academic study.
Some majors also require completion of a foreign language requirement.
The comparative studies major requires 55 credit hours in comparative studies and in fields related to the student's area of concentration, including at least 30 credit hours at the 300-level and above. The major consists of courses taught in comparative studies as well as courses offered by the various participating units, including the departments of African-American and African Studies, Anthropology, East Asian Languages and Literatures, English, French and Italian, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Greek and Latin, History, History of Art, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Philosophy, Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, Sociology, Spanish and Portuguese, and Women's Studies. Each area of concentration includes foundation courses, which provide an introduction to the area of study and raise the issues and questions that are most important in each area. The interdisciplinary requirement provides different disciplinary perspectives on each subject, as well as an awareness of the relationships among those perspectives. The interdisciplinary requirement also emphasizes the interconnections among literature, religion, folklore, and science and technology.