HE 2210

How College Works: Making Sense of Higher Education

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

This course is designed for students who want to better understand elite higher education and how inequalities are both perpetuated and mediated by its structure and practices (focusing on gender, race, and first generation college students). Social scientists define “elite” as the high end of a distribution of resources, social influence, and prestige. This course will prepare students for their own undergraduate study at Cornell, using research and reflection. The course draws from research in education, sociology, and gender studies. While it is designed for undergraduates, with a notable utility for first-year students, anyone is welcome!

Distribution Requirements (CA-HE, SBA-HE)

Last 4 Terms Offered (None)

Learning Outcomes

• Students will use and critique research to think critically about higher education, both as a system, an organization, and the social dynamics of college life.
• Students will dive deeply into the inter-disciplinary study of higher education. They will leave with extensive exposure to feminist, critical, and organizational theories of inequality and looked critically at many aspects of higher education.
• Students will learn how to read both scholarly research articles and social science non-fiction books - and then produce concise, thorough, and synthesized analyses of the topics covered. Through both weekly assignments and a final project/paper, students will communicate via effective writing and weave their personal experience with research.

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