• Urban Studies Hero

    Urban Studies (BA)

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  • Admission Events

    Explore upcoming webinars and other events for prospective students.
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  • Contact Us

    Admission Contact
    Office of Undergraduate Admission
    72 Fifth Avenue, 1st floor
    New York, NY 10011

    212.229.5150 or 800.292.3040
    [email protected]

    Program Contacts
    Jürgen von Mahs

    Chair, Environmental Studies
    [email protected]

    Chris McElderry
    64 West 11th Street, room 120
    New York, NY 10011
    [email protected]

  • Earn a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies in a program open to transfer students, adults, and other nontraditional undergraduates. The urban studies major offers an interdisciplinary curriculum designed to help students examine the 21st century's greatest challenges — globalization, urbanization, social justice, and sustainability — in the quest of making cities more viable, equitable, healthy, and meaningful.

    • Degree Bachelor of Arts
    • Credits 120 (up to 84 transfer credits)
    • Format Full-time or part-time, on campus or online
    • Start Term Fall or Spring

    Flexible Curriculum

    Urban Studies majors have the flexibility to explore courses in multiple academic disciplines as you learn to address the myriad ways urbanization affects many facets of life, including politics, social justice, the environment, and the economy. You develop an understanding of the peoples and structures that make up cities both in the United States and internationally. 

    You can design a customized course of study to meet your personal interests and goals, exploring issues such as:

    • The role of the city in the national and global economy
    • How the city shapes and is shaped by cultural life and the natural environment
    • The intersection of municipal agencies and nonprofit organizations in areas such as housing and homelessness, health, and social welfare
    • How neighborhoods are created, destroyed, and revitalized
    • How urban politics reflects these issues and drives change

    Learn more about the curriculum

    Interdisciplinary Excellence

    The New School offers the BA in Urban Studies as part of the university's suite of cross-college, interdisciplinary undergraduate programs, which includes Global Studies, Environmental Studies, and Urban Studies. These interdisciplinary programs are designed to prepare students for the new careers of the 21st century.

    Career Paths

    Students who complete the Urban Studies major are prepared to pursue graduate study or to enter careers in fields such as community organizing, development, public policy, urban planning, public health, philanthropy, advocacy, arts, education, journalism, management, entrepreneurship, real estate, or law both domestically and abroad.

     

  • Learn from and work with faculty mentors who are academic scholars and professional leaders in urban studies fields.

  • Featured Courses

    • This reading intensive seminar introduces students to issues of urban sustainability across time, space, and scale. We examine efforts by planners, activists, policy makers, and citizens to improve the urban environment over time, as well as the role cities might play in the creation of a more sust...

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    • UURB 4514

      Housing Policy

      Housing policy, like welfare, health, education, and other social policy arenas, is undergoing fundamental reexamination and debate. Not only are objectives and implementation at issue, the very need for housing policy is itself in question. This course provides the background necessary to be an inf...

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    • The city that surrounds us presents unparalleled opportunities for study and reflection. In this course, we engage the spaces and places of New York in order to learn from them. The focus of our work is on the ordinary settings of everyday life--the streets, sidewalks, shops, playgrounds, parks, w...

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  • If you are fascinated by cities, their built environment, and the life that unfolds in them and want to make a difference in making cities more just, liveable, and sustainable places, then urban studies is the right academic field for you.

    Jurgen von Mahs, Chair and Associate Professor in Urban Studies

Submit your application

Undergraduates

To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

Undergraduate Adult Learners

To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Graduates

To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

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