Taylor Swift Course To Be Offered By UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley has announced that it will launch a new course, called “Artistry and Entrepreneurship: Taylor’s Version,” through its Haas School of Business in 2024.

The course’s syllabus will reportedly require students to “fall down a rabbit hole of what has led to Taylor Swift‘s prolific success as a songwriter, businesswoman, and creative influence.”

“Through lyricism, branding, and craft, we’ll explore how art and authenticity create enduring value and a viable enterprise,” the syllabus continues, according to KRON4. “We’ll analyze performance and interview clips, discuss media portrayal and perceptions, and develop working definitions of Swift’s role in society-and yours. We’ll put her under scrutiny, but handle it beautifully.” The course will be handled by Sofia Lendahl and Crystal Haryanto. Haryanto is a UC Berkeley Alumni Scholar Leadership Award recipient who graduated in the spring.

“At her day job, she’s an analyst at an economic consulting firm. In her midnights, she’s Taylor Swift’s altar ego,” her biography states. Her favorite Swift album is Speak Now, while evermore is the favorite of Lendahl.

In 2022, New York University launched a class studying Swift’s entrepreneurship, songwriting influences and relationship to the media at the Clive Davis Institute. Swift, who was conferred an honorary doctorate degree at the university later that year, delivered a speech to the graduates.

Since then, Swift syllabi has been rolled out at the University of Texas, Arizona State University and Stanford University.

(Photo: Beth Garrabrant)