Minor Requirements

  • Six courses with Latin American content are required, only two courses counted toward a student's major may be doubly-counted toward the Latin American Studies Minor.
  • Language competence equivalent to two semesters of college study in Spanish or Portuguese is required. Only advanced composition courses (such as Spanish 1200) and literature courses may count among the six content courses for the Minor.
  • All courses of Latin American content taken in study-abroad programs will count toward the six Latin American Studies Minor content courses (subject to the approval of a Minor Advisor), except for basic language classes (see above).
  • Courses to be counted toward the Minor must be taken for a letter grade.
  • All courses that are denoted as LALS in the registrar or have at least one of the following attributes - ALCR, ALDI, ALHI, ALMR, ALRP, and ALSS - can count towards the LALS Minor.  If a course has at least 30% content pertaining to Latin American and Latinx studies but is not cross-listed or does not have a LALS attribute, you may try to petition that course to count by reaching out to the Associate Director at clals-upenn@sas.upenn.edu.  

In order to request to apply for a Minor or Major, students should submit their requests through the Declare/Update Field of Study form available in Path@Penn.  You may also use this worksheet (Major/Minor Declaration Form) and contact the Associate Director at clals-upenn@sas.upenn.edu to discuss the Major or Minor. 

To search for LALS courses on Path@Penn, you can search for LALS in the top toolbar on the left.  Or you can search for our Major/Minor related attribute, ALMR. You will find some additional courses if you search for the attributes ALCR, ALDI, ALHI, ALRP, or ALSS.  Feel free to reach out to us with any questions that you may have.

For more information about the Latin American and Latinx Studies Major or Minor, see the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies Associate Director, Catherine Bartch. Her office is 457 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk. She can be reached at bartch@sas.upenn.edu.