Joint Majors: CS+X

About CS+X at Stanford

An experiment in learning, known informally as "CS+X", is aimed at integrating the humanities and computer science while providing students with unique educational experiences. Stanford will begin offering undergraduates the opportunity to pursue a new Joint Major in computer science and a number of humanities disciplines, starting in fall 2014. Our goal is to give Stanford students the chance to become a new type of engineer and a new type of humanist.

The potential strength of this new educational initiative can be judged by the fact that Stanford’s Computer Science department is jointly ranked as the nation’s strongest in the US News and World Report rankings and the university’s Arts and Humanities cluster is ranked as No.1 in the world in the 2013-2014 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Intersecting opposites create altered perspectives, fresh intellectual possibilities and new strengths. CS+X is an initiative designed to allow students to pursue their academic passions in multiple academic fields. It aims to help undergraduates balance pragmatism with ambition. And it affords them intellectual environments in which they can develop their creativity and analytic robustness by acquiring skills in separate but mutually galvanizing fields of study: engineering speaking to the imagination while literature, philosophy and language imbue technical challenges with human significance.

The new Joint Major degrees, which will lead to conferral of a B.A.S., are distinct from dual degrees or double majors. The keynote of the Joint Major is integrative learning. These programs are designed to allow a student to pursue a course of study leading to mastery in two fields by blending the vibrant intellectual traditions of two Stanford departments. 

CS+X Joint Majors for 2015-16

Art studio on campus. Photo by Ian Terpin, University Communications.

Art Practice+CS

Faculty Contact: Camille Utterback 
Staff Contact: Linda Esquivel 


Roman ruin, Wikimedia commons

CS+Classics

Faculty Contact: Professor Giovanna Ceserani
Staff Contact: Lori Lynn Taniguchi


Books on a desk.

CS+Comparative Literature

Faculty Contact: Professor Adrian Daub
Staff Contact: Denise Winters


Books on a shelf, Ian Terpin / University Communications

CS+English

Faculty Contact: Professor Gavin Jones 
 Staff Contact: Maile Yee

Learn More About CS+English on department site


Students at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, BOSP

CS+French

Faculty Contact: Professor Adrian Daub
Staff Contact: Denise Winters


View of Berlin, Dennis Jarvis, Flickr

CS+German Studies

Faculty Contact: Professor Adrian Daub
Staff Contact: Denise Winters


Historic map of Stanford, University Archives

CS+History

Faculty Contact: Professor James T. Campbell
Staff Contact: Priscilla Tojino
 

Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez.

CS+Iberian and Latin American Cultures

Faculty Contact: Professor Adrian Daub
Staff Contact: Denise Winters


Image of the Duomo in Florence, BOSP

CS+Italian

Faculty Contact: Professor Adrian Daub
Staff Contact: Denise Winters


Researcher and research participant engaged in a Linguistics study, Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service

CS+Linguistics 

Faculty Contact: Professor Dan Jurafsky
Staff Contact: Ann Marie Pettigrew


Recording studio, Ian Terpin / University Communications

CS+Music

Faculty Contact: Professor Ge Wang
Staff Contacts: Nette Worthey and Rowen Leigh


Plato and Aristotle, Wikimedia Commons

CS+Philosophy

Faculty Contact: Professor Thomas Icard
Staff Contact: Ai Tran


View of Red Square in Moscow, BOSP

CS+Slavic Languages and Literatures

Faculty Contact: Professor Adrian Daub
Staff Contact: Denise Winters


Spanish church.

CS+Spanish

Faculty Contact: Professor Adrian Daub
Staff Contact: Denise Winters

 

Computer Science Contacts

Staff Contact: Meredith Hutchin
Faculty Contact:  Professor Eric Roberts.