You’ll flex your creative muscles as you engage with classic and contemporary novels, short stories and experimental texts. You’ll also develop critical reading and writing skills as you study a variety of literary forms and genres.
For requirements and more information about these programs, visit the catalog.
Creative Writing (BA)
Creative Writing students at Columbia have consistently pushed boundaries. As a Creative Writing major, you’ll do the same—discovering your own voice as a writer while developing your craft and benefiting from regular, one-on-one interactions with diverse, distinguished faculty. Most importantly, you’ll spend a lot of time creating work. And by the time you graduate, you’ll be grounded in the aesthetics of writing as well the business of creative writing.
Learn MoreConcentrations:
English (BA)
Columbia College Chicago's English bachelor's degree program combines the study of literature, creative writing, and professional writing. This career-focused interdisciplinary program fosters transferable skills like creative thinking, leadership, active listening, writing, and collaboration.
Learn MoreCultural Studies (BA)
Columbia College Chicago's Cultural Studies bachelor's degree program is one of the few such programs for undergraduates in the United States. Interdisciplinary at heart and multimedia in orientation, this intensive program analyzes and critiques our cultural, social, and political world, incorporating the arts and media disciplines and study from across Columbia’s programs to highlight the interplay of culture, economy, and diversity.
Learn MoreFiction (BFA)
In the Fiction BFA program, you’ll study a variety of literary forms and genres, narrative techniques and revision strategies. You’ll also engage with classic and contemporary novels, short stories and experimental texts. Through an amazing array of specialty writing classes and workshop-style learning, you’ll be exposed to the intense liberal arts education all writers must possess, while completing a service learning component and rigorous capstone class.
Learn MoreInterdisciplinary Documentary (BA)
What’s your compelling story? Develop your personal voice in the expanding world of nonfiction storytelling. In Columbia College Chicago’s Interdisciplinary Documentary BA program, you’ll learn how to craft stories that interweave photography, cinema, radio, creative writing, journalism, and more. Strengthen your documentary practice as a director, writer, photographer, or voice actor in classes from a variety of departments across Columbia, and graduate with a portfolio of nonfiction work that spans disciplines and media formats.
Learn MoreCreative Writing, Minor
The minor in Creative Writing allows you to combine your major field of study with a sequence of workshop classes and elective writing courses that will improve reading, writing, listening, speaking and problem-solving skills—a natural boost for any creative professional. You’ll enjoy all of the benefits available to Creative Writing majors: experienced resident and visiting instructors, the ability to work on student-produced literary magazines, and other special programs.
Literature Minor
This minor offers a wide range of literature courses exploring fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, and film. As you engage literary writers from the US, Britain, and/or the world, you will gain valuable career skills in critical thinking, research, idea development, and analytical writing. You will also discover the relationships between literature and the diverse aesthetic, historical, and cultural contexts in which it is written and read. The flexible curriculum allows you to shape the minor according to your interests.
Degree RequirementsProfessional Writing Minor
This minor is designed to help you gain practical skills in writing for the workplace, with a focus on writing effectively for and about the arts and media. You’ll explore the rhetorical, ethical, and cultural dimensions of communication and find opportunities to learn, research, create, and distribute content for print and digital environments.
Degree Requirements