In addition to language courses at all levels, students have the opportunity to take a variety of courses in Russian literature, linguistics, history, cinema, and culture; department majors concentrate in one particular area of study. The department also encourages its majors to apply their knowledge of the language to other disciplines. As a result, students regularly combine a Russian major with majors or minors in areas such as other languages, linguistics, comparative literature, economics, history, computer science, biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics.

The Russian major is a multidisciplinary program designed to provide students with a broad understanding of Russian culture and the Russophone world. The major places a strong emphasis on the development of functional proficiency in the Russian language. Language study is combined with a specific area of concentration to be selected from the fields of Russian literature, history, economics, language/linguistics, or area studies.