The largest of USC's academic schools, the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences plays an integral role in the intellectual life of the university. USC College forms the backbone of undergraduate education, providing general education courses for all students and a selection of more than 130 majors and minors. The college also administers the majority of USC’s non-professional graduate training programs, offering doctoral and master’s degrees in more than 20 fields of study.In addition, the college serves as the university’s primary center for fundamental research in disciplines spanning the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Many of research groups at USC College are nationally recognized for excellence, including those focused on the history of California and the West, neuroscience, computational biology, creative writing, aging, the philosophy of language, geobiology, hydrocarbon chemistry and earthquake phenomena.