Starting in Fall 2026, the Gould School of Law and the Marshall School of Business are offering several new minors that are open to all undergraduate students. 

According to Gould, its five new minors are designed to “help students develop in-demand skills in critical thinking, communication, advocacy, problem-solving, and legal analysis.” The two from Marshall aim to foster interdisciplinary applications of business, according to Marshall’s blog.

“These new minors reflect USC’s commitment to academic excellence and preparing our students for leadership, innovation, and adaptability in a rapidly changing world,” a statement from the Office of the Provost read.

Incorporating courses from the School of Dramatic Arts, the law, advocacy and persuasive performance minor is for students interested in improving their public speaking and presentational skills in the context of law, according to Gould.

Required courses including “Improvisation and Theatre Games” and “Public Speaking as Performance” will supplement law courses and hone students’ adaptability, both in and out of legal advocacy. In 16 units, students can “become thoughtful, adaptable, and compelling advocates for justice, leadership, and civic engagement,” according to Gould.

The law and government minor is for students interested in the machinations of justice within the United States government and how they shape civic oversight. The 16-unit minor requires “Law and Politics” and offers students up to eight units of law electives as well as up to eight units of nonlaw courses, including “Global Governance” or “Legislative Process.”

Students will “develop the analytical skills needed to understand how legal frameworks influence decision-making at every level of government,” according to Gould.

With the rising prevalence of name, image and likeness negotiations in athletics, the new sports law minor aims to improve students’ critical thinking and legal analysis, which are “applicable across a wide range of careers,” according to Gould. At 16 units, the minor covers a wide range of appropriate topics.

The minor incorporates classes from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, including “Sports Investigative Reporting,” allowing students to explore athlete representation, contract development and governance within athletics.

The largest of the new minors, the 20-unit law and public health program “explores how legal systems, policy, and health institutions work together to shape individual and population health outcomes,” according to Gould. The minor will educate students on ethics and representation within the social and legal regulation of public health. 

The track requires several law courses but expands its catalogue to incorporate health promotion and disease prevention classes, such as “Introduction to Global Health” and “Culture, Lifestyle, and Health.”

With substantial curricular overlap with the Iovine and Young Academy, the 18-unit law and innovation minor aims to prepare students for an evolving legal landscape in design and technology and equip them with the skills necessary to adapt law in response to an ever-changing world. 

The minor is for students looking to improve their “legal reasoning, design thinking, data visualization, and interdisciplinary collaboration” skills as well as explore emerging topics including “intellectual property, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and product development,” according to Gould.

Rather than solely focus on the theory of production, the product management minor aims to provide hands-on experience in reading market needs, leading and organizing oversight teams, and managing the development and distribution of products, according to Marshall. 

Required courses include both levels of “Product Management” and “Feasibility Analysis,” among other practical and relevant management courses; however, the minor also explores classes within technology and applied computing and IYA topics like “Disruptive Validation.”

“All industries rely on products and services to succeed,” said Gordon Ho, faculty lead for the minor and professor of the practice in management and organization, in a Marshall news release. “This is the time for USC to put its stamp on the area of product management.”

The 16-unit applied AI in business minor housed within Marshall will explore not only the practical use of AI in innovation and strategy but also the role of machine learning in decision-making, according to Marshall. 

The coursework incorporates management and organization, business communication, data sciences and operations, and marketing to work in tandem with AI development.

“This is an opportunity to bring human ingenuity and artificial intelligence to real-world business challenges,” said Inge Lindholm, faculty lead for the minor and assistant professor of clinical data sciences and operations, in a Marshall news release.