The University of Southern California has created an academic honor that is awarded to select undergraduate students who graduate with a major and a minor (or two majors) in widely separated fields of study. Recipients of this honor are known as USC Renaissance Scholars.

USC has a comprehensive array of undergraduate majors and minors that span the arts and humanities, the social and natural sciences, and the professions. In fact, the range of undergraduate minors is the broadest of any university in the country.

Undergraduates can combine a major in history with a minor in business, or a major in engineering with a minor in cinema, or a double major in physics and classics, or majors and minors in scores of other pairs of disparate fields.

The objective is not just breadth in the conventional sense - not just coverage or well roundedness. Rather, the objective is breadth with depth, and the extraordinary release of intellectual energy that often occurs when two widely separate fields of thought are brought together in the same mind. Students educated in this way will be especially well prepared to confront the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. All USC undergraduates are encouraged to pursue this sort of breadth with depth. Those who do so and who also distinguish themselves academically will be honored as USC Renaissance Scholars. How to become a Renaissance Scholar