Class Schedules

The aim of this course is to make you aware of the complex organization and systematic nature of language. You will be studying yourself and those around you, since you are all language users. Most of your knowledge of language, however, is unconscious, and earlier education may have given you confusing or misleading notions about language. This course is intended to clarify your ideas about language and bring you to a better understanding of its nature. You will learn more about how languages work by observing and analyzing  language(s) (from people you know, from yourself, videos, in-class data sets, social media, texting etc.)  By the end of the course you should be familiar with some of the terminology and techniques of linguistic analysis and be able to apply this knowledge to the description of different languages.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to psychological science -- the study of behavior and mental processes. This course surveys the major subdisciplines of the field, including such topics as the brain and neuroscience, behavioral genetics, cognitive and social development, perception, learning, memory, decision-making, language, consciousness, emotions, motivation, psychological disorders, social identity, interpersonal interactions and group and cultural processes. Lecture and laboratory components.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to psychological science -- the study of behavior and mental processes. This course surveys the major subdisciplines of the field, including such topics as the brain and neuroscience, behavioral genetics, cognitive and social development, perception, learning, memory, decision-making, language, consciousness, emotions, motivation, psychological disorders, social identity, interpersonal interactions and group and cultural processes. Lecture and laboratory components.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to formal methods for evaluating deductive arguments. Topics include formal fallacies, decision procedures, translation of arguments to argument forms, and natural deduction proofs in propositional and predicate logic.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

An introduction to formal methods for evaluating deductive arguments. Topics include formal fallacies, decision procedures, translation of arguments to argument forms, and natural deduction proofs in propositional and predicate logic.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Throughout human history, people have engaged in production and trade to satisfy their needs. This course introduces students to the basic economic concepts and theories needed to understand this amazing story. The course consists of two broad sections. In the first section, we will study individual consumer and firm decision-making. In this section, we will learn how to “think like an economist.” We explore the essential elements of economic decision-making and how markets facilitate the gains from trade. We investigate cases where economists believe markets work well to allocate goods and services and those where “market failures” provide a rationale for government intervention. We also study how different market structures (i.e., competitive markets versus monopoly) influence human welfare. This will make up our coverage of microeconomics. The second part of the course focuses on macroeconomics—the study of economy-wide “aggregates” (Gross Domestic Product, the Consumer Price Index, and the unemployment rate) and how they interact. One objective is to examine the forces driving economic growth over time, so we can understand why some nations are prosperous while others are poor. Another is to learn about business cycles and the role that fiscal and monetary policy play in moderating recessions. Along the way, we will learn about banks, interest rates, stock prices, exchange rates, and other important features of the financial system.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

How does a market economy determine who gets scarce resources? What should policymakers do about income inequality or pollution? How does monetary policy influence inflation and unemployment? This course introduces the core concepts and theories economists use to study these questions and others, including topics like taxes, monopolies, poverty, financial markets, international trade, and recessions. We will build our understanding through lectures, group work, and some simple data exercises. We approach the course in three parts. In the first part of the course, we will study how the choices of individual decision-makers like companies and consumers form the foundations of the market economy, introducing the model of supply and demand and exploring the cases where markets function well to allocate goods and services. In the second part of the course, we will examine cases where markets do not function as well, considering the consequences of situations like externalities (e.g. pollution) or limited competition (e.g.monopoly) and potential policy correctives. In the third part of the course, we will move from our study of individual decision-makers to broader economic conditions, exploring inflation, unemployment, and business cycles.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the basic principles of research in psychology, with an emphasis on statistical techniques used in psychological science. We examine how to test psychological hypotheses using various statistical analyses, and we consider the pros and cons of experimental, quasi-experimental, and correlational research designs. The course includes a weekly laboratory component in which students develop proficiency with statistical software, writing reports in American Psychological Association style, and familiarity with experimental techniques unique to behavioral research. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100 Permission of instructor is required for first year students.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to theory and research in educational psychology. Topics include learning theory, learner characteristics, intelligence, creativity, motivation, measurement and evaluation, and models of teaching appropriate for diverse learners from early childhood through young adulthood. Students are required to complete observations in classroom settings.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

How do people learn, remember, and think?  How much of our cognitive life are we even consciously aware of?  This course addresses these questions and others from the perspective of experimental cognitive psychology.  Topics include perception, attention, memory, the organization of knowledge, language, and decision making. Weekly laboratory sessions afford students the opportunity to interact more directly with cognitive phenomena and research methods.  Readings are mainly from primary sources.  Group A course. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Cognitive neuroscience is a relatively recent discipline that combines cognitive science and cognitive psychology with biology and neuroscience to investigate how the brain enables the myriad of complex functions we know as the mind. This course will explore basic concepts and contemporary topics in the field, focusing in particular on the methods used in cognitive neuroscience research. Through lecture and lab sessions, students will learn to read and interpret primary source material, design and implement cognitive neuroscience studies, and present research in verbal and written forms. Overall, students will gain an appreciation for the amazing intricacy of the brain-mind relationship, as well as a sense of how this relationship may be understood eventually using cognitive neuroscience techniques. Group A course. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 180 or PSYC 100.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

In the past fifty years, science fiction has emerged as the primary cultural form for thinking about human extinction: climate catastrophe, pandemics, hostile AI, nuclear war. But science fiction has also emerged as the primary cultural form for imagining a near boundless future for humans: cybernetic enhancements, colonies on Goldilocks planets, post-scarcity economies, digital consciousness. Facing such disorienting and sometimes unfathomable changes, science fiction seeks to understand what it means to be a human and to live a meaningful life. Why are we here? What are we to become? How will both the promises and threats of technology change what it means to be a thinking, feeling human? In this course we will examine works of science fiction as complex aesthetic achievements, as philosophical inquiries into the nature of being and time, and as theoretical examinations of the nature of human cognition. We will engage in intensive readings of contemporary texts, including works by Ted Chiang, Philip K. Dick, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Kazuo Ishiguro, and others. This class counts toward the Cognitive Science Concentration.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will equip you with the skills and intuition to think about politics in a more critical and organized way.  You will practice the scientific method - identifying a problem worthy of study, developing testable hypotheses, designing a research strategy, gathering data, analyzing data, and interpreting your results - and contemplate the philosophical conundrums that underlie our efforts to describe, explain, and interpret complex phenomena. Empirical Methods: The department requires its majors to take one course in empirical research methodology before their senior year. In addition to this course, there are a number of other courses that fulfill this requirement, including: POLI 272, SOCI 269, SOCI 270, SOCI 275. In some cases, research methods courses taken in other social science disciplines may be used to fulfill this requirement following approval by the political science department chair.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In microeconomics, we study how individuals make economic choices. We pose questions like: What influences consumers' purchasing decisions? Will firms replace employees with machines if the minimum wage increases? How do concentrated markets (e.g., airlines, Amazon) affect consumers? If a firm can set different prices for different consumers, what set of prices will be optimal? How do risk and uncertainty affect investment decisions? What is the efficient amount of pollution? What role should governments play in providing resources for public goods like parks? In this course, we derive models of constrained choice to examine fundamental tradeoffs faced by individuals, firms, and governments when making economic decisions and to determine how such decisions influence market outcomes and well-being. This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s): MATH 135 or MATH 137, and one 200-level Economics course from Group E electives. Not open to first-year students except by permission of the instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In microeconomics, we study how individuals make economic choices. We pose questions like: What influences consumers' purchasing decisions? Will firms replace employees with machines if the minimum wage increases? How do concentrated markets (e.g., airlines, Amazon) affect consumers? If a firm can set different prices for different consumers, what set of prices will be optimal? How do risk and uncertainty affect investment decisions? What is the efficient amount of pollution? What role should governments play in providing resources for public goods like parks? In this course, we derive models of constrained choice to examine fundamental tradeoffs faced by individuals, firms, and governments when making economic decisions and to determine how such decisions influence market outcomes and well-being. This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s): MATH 135 or MATH 137, and one 200-level Economics course from Group E electives. Not open to first-year students except by permission of the instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course explores how and why we make moral judgments about people and their behavior. How are our moral judgments shaped by intuition, emotion, and reasoning? What are the moral implications of climate change? Do we ever put the interests of our broader group or community above our own self-interest? How do we balance punishment motives of retribution and deterrence, and how do these relate to policy decisions about capital punishment? Could a robot have moral rights and responsibilities? We will examine these questions by considering theories and findings from social, developmental, evolutionary, and political psychology, as well as from related fields like philosophy and artificial intelligence. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 201 and one intermediate psychology course, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to the basic principles and techniques of artificial intelligence. Topics will include specific AI techniques, a range of application areas, and connections between AI and other areas of study (i.e., philosophy, psychology). Techniques may include heuristic search, automated reasoning, machine learning, deliberative planning and behavior-based agent control. Application areas include robotics, games, knowledge representation, and natural language processing. This course involves programming in Python; students should have a basic familiarity with Python or be prepared to learn Python during the course. This course counts as the capstone. Prerequisite(s): COMP 221, or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

The aim of this course is to make you aware of the complex organization and systematic nature of language. You will be studying yourself and those around you, since you are all language users. Most of your knowledge of language, however, is unconscious, and earlier education may have given you confusing or misleading notions about language. This course is intended to clarify your ideas about language and bring you to a better understanding of its nature. You will learn more about how languages work by observing and analyzing  language(s) (from people you know, from yourself, videos, in-class data sets, social media, texting etc.)  By the end of the course you should be familiar with some of the terminology and techniques of linguistic analysis and be able to apply this knowledge to the description of different languages.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to psychological science -- the study of behavior and mental processes. This course surveys the major subdisciplines of the field, including such topics as the brain and neuroscience, behavioral genetics, cognitive and social development, perception, learning, memory, decision-making, language, consciousness, emotions, motivation, psychological disorders, social identity, interpersonal interactions and group and cultural processes. Lecture and laboratory components.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to psychological science -- the study of behavior and mental processes. This course surveys the major subdisciplines of the field, including such topics as the brain and neuroscience, behavioral genetics, cognitive and social development, perception, learning, memory, decision-making, language, consciousness, emotions, motivation, psychological disorders, social identity, interpersonal interactions and group and cultural processes. Lecture and laboratory components.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course provides an introduction to the handling, analysis, and interpretation of the big datasets now routinely being collected in science, commerce, and government. Students achieve facility with a sophisticated, technical computing environment. The course aligns with techniques being used in several courses in the natural and social sciences, statistics, and mathematics. The course is intended to be accessible to all students, regardless of background.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Economics is the study of how people make decisions and how these decisions apply to real-world problems. Economics can help us understand income inequality within and across countries, the quality of the environment, unemployment, poverty, crime, health care, financial crises, technological change, inflation and many more issues. This course introduces the basic tools that economists use to explore these topics and will cover fundamental economic concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, costs and benefits, trade-offs, and incentives. This course is a one semester overview of both microeconomics (the study of choices firms and individual consumers make) and macroeconomics (the study of the economy as a whole). This course counts as a Group E economics course and is the prerequisite for 200-level E courses in the Economics Department.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course introduces the field of computer science, including central concepts such as the design and implementation of algorithms and programs, testing and analyzing programs, the representation of information within the computer, and the role of abstraction and metaphor in computer science. The exploration of these central ideas will draw examples from a range of application areas including multimedia processing, turtle graphics, and text processing. Course work will use the Python programming language.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

An introductory statistics course with an emphasis on multivariate modeling. Topics include descriptive statistics, experiment and study design, probability, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, single and multi-way analysis of variance, logistic regression.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the basic principles of research in psychology, with an emphasis on statistical techniques used in psychological science. We examine how to test psychological hypotheses using various statistical analyses, and we consider the pros and cons of experimental, quasi-experimental, and correlational research designs. The course includes a weekly laboratory component in which students develop proficiency with statistical software, writing reports in American Psychological Association style, and familiarity with experimental techniques unique to behavioral research. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100 Permission of instructor is required for first year students.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course is an introduction to the basic principles of research in psychology, with an emphasis on statistical techniques used in psychological science. We examine how to test psychological hypotheses using various statistical analyses, and we consider the pros and cons of experimental, quasi-experimental, and correlational research designs. The course includes a weekly laboratory component in which students develop proficiency with statistical software, writing reports in American Psychological Association style, and familiarity with experimental techniques unique to behavioral research. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100 Permission of instructor is required for first year students.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

An introduction to theory and research in educational psychology. Topics include learning theory, learner characteristics, intelligence, creativity, motivation, measurement and evaluation, and models of teaching appropriate for diverse learners from early childhood through young adulthood. Students are required to complete observations in classroom settings.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

How do people learn, remember, and think?  How much of our cognitive life are we even consciously aware of?  This course addresses these questions and others from the perspective of experimental cognitive psychology.  Topics include perception, attention, memory, the organization of knowledge, language, and decision making. Weekly laboratory sessions afford students the opportunity to interact more directly with cognitive phenomena and research methods.  Readings are mainly from primary sources.  Group A course. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q2

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Cognitive neuroscience is a relatively recent discipline that combines cognitive science and cognitive psychology with biology and neuroscience to investigate how the brain enables the myriad of complex functions we know as the mind. This course will explore basic concepts and contemporary topics in the field, focusing in particular on the methods used in cognitive neuroscience research. Through lecture and lab sessions, students will learn to read and interpret primary source material, design and implement cognitive neuroscience studies, and present research in verbal and written forms. Overall, students will gain an appreciation for the amazing intricacy of the brain-mind relationship, as well as a sense of how this relationship may be understood eventually using cognitive neuroscience techniques. Group A course. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 180 or PSYC 100.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q1

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

This course surveys the ways in which social phenomena influence the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals. We examine the major theories, experiments, and issues in the field of social psychology. Sample topics include emotion, aggression, conformity, attitudes, altruism, prejudice, persuasion, and group dynamics. Group B course. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course will equip you with the skills and intuition to think about politics in a more critical and organized way.  You will practice the scientific method - identifying a problem worthy of study, developing testable hypotheses, designing a research strategy, gathering data, analyzing data, and interpreting your results - and contemplate the philosophical conundrums that underlie our efforts to describe, explain, and interpret complex phenomena. Empirical Methods: The department requires its majors to take one course in empirical research methodology before their senior year. In addition to this course, there are a number of other courses that fulfill this requirement, including: POLI 272, SOCI 269, SOCI 270, SOCI 275. In some cases, research methods courses taken in other social science disciplines may be used to fulfill this requirement following approval by the political science department chair.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Social scientists have many methodological approaches to choose from in their research toolkit ranging from qualitative to quantitative to comparative historical. Each of these approaches allows us to see and understand society from different perspectives, sometimes offering us complementary snapshots and other times presenting us with contradictory information. How, then, can we engage evidence to make claims about the social world? What even counts as evidence and who gets to speak for whom? Social Science Inquiry is part of a methods training sequence that emphasizes quantitative social science inquiry-that is, the approach to social science research that entails statistically analyzing relatively large datasets and emphasizes concerns such as measurement, replicability, objectivity, generalizability, and causal inference. However, this methodological approach is not without its critics. Therefore, this course begins by being in conversation with quantitative social science's critics, examining the abuse of quantitative knowledge in social science research and how quantitative social scientists have themselves been complicit in building many of the tools now at the center of contemporary ethical debates over online privacy, digitization, facial recognition, AI, and their use in policing, surveillance, and border enforcement. Taking the stance that quantitative methods are tools with the capacity to either build up or break down social structures, we will work with municipal data from the City of Minneapolis to explore how quantitative methods may be, in sociologist Ruha Benjamin's words, "retooled" to serve emancipatory and abolitionist purposes. Readings will focus on case studies from social science research and critical texts from science and technology studies. Methods-training content will specifically entail the use of R and will cover inferring population characteristics from survey samples, estimating causality and predicting outcomes using linear regression, the principles of probability and estimating statistical uncertainty, and how to critically read quantitative information presented via figures and tables.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In microeconomics, we study how individuals make economic choices. We pose questions like: What influences consumers' purchasing decisions? Will firms replace employees with machines if the minimum wage increases? How do concentrated markets (e.g., airlines, Amazon) affect consumers? If a firm can set different prices for different consumers, what set of prices will be optimal? How do risk and uncertainty affect investment decisions? What is the efficient amount of pollution? What role should governments play in providing resources for public goods like parks? In this course, we derive models of constrained choice to examine fundamental tradeoffs faced by individuals, firms, and governments when making economic decisions and to determine how such decisions influence market outcomes and well-being. This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s): MATH 135 or MATH 137, and one 200-level Economics course from Group E electives. Not open to first-year students except by permission of the instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

In microeconomics, we study how individuals make economic choices. We pose questions like: What influences consumers' purchasing decisions? Will firms replace employees with machines if the minimum wage increases? How do concentrated markets (e.g., airlines, Amazon) affect consumers? If a firm can set different prices for different consumers, what set of prices will be optimal? How do risk and uncertainty affect investment decisions? What is the efficient amount of pollution? What role should governments play in providing resources for public goods like parks? In this course, we derive models of constrained choice to examine fundamental tradeoffs faced by individuals, firms, and governments when making economic decisions and to determine how such decisions influence market outcomes and well-being. This course counts as a Group E elective. Prerequisite(s): MATH 135 or MATH 137, and one 200-level Economics course from Group E electives. Not open to first-year students except by permission of the instructor. C- or higher required for all prerequisites.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This course focuses on the statistical methods that geographers use to describe and analyze places and themes. Students will learn both descriptive and inferential statistical methods for use in geographical research, including exploratory data analysis techniques, spatial statistics, geographic sampling, hypothesis testing, and regression analysis. The course provides students with experience in the application of statistical methods to spatial problems through the use of statistical software. Students will also learn to evaluate and develop statistical research designs, including preparation and presentation of an original research project. Prerequisite(s): Geography major or permission of instructor.

General Education Requirements:
Quantitative Thinking Q3

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials