- 2024–2025 Courses:
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IDSC 100: Civil Discourse in a Troubled Age
As we listen to people discussing critical issues facing individuals, communities, countries and the planet, what do we see happening? Is communication occurring? Do the sides hear each other and seek to understand another point of view, even if in disagreement? Is the goal truth or the best policy or victory for a side? What skills, approaches, and conditions lead to genuine discussion and productive argument? How can we cultivate these as individuals and communities? This Argument and Inquiry seminar addresses these questions in both theory and practice by allowing students the opportunity to read, view, discuss, and analyze theoretical discussions and case studies drawn from the past and present on a range of controversial topics.
Prerequisites:Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
6 credits; AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1; offered Fall 2024 · William North, Sindy Fleming -
IDSC 100: Data Storytelling
From dubious statistical claims on social media to biometric tracking on our phones, we are constant consumers and producers of data, often without knowing it. More data about ourselves and our world is available than ever before, but how do we make sense of it? What good is it? Should we be collecting it at all? We will read and discuss how data is used in tech, education, medicine, activism, and more, to convince, confuse, and mislead the public. Students will learn how to think critically about numbers in the world around them, work with data, and tell compelling stories.
Prerequisites:Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
6 credits; AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1, QRE, Quantitative Reasoning; offered Fall 2024 · Lin Winton -
IDSC 100: Games and Gaming Cultures
In this seminar, we will use games (both by studying them and by playing them) as a lens through which we can explore all manner of fascinating questions. How do the games we play shape our culture and our communities? What makes a game fun, engaging, addictive, boring, brutal, or banal? How can games encourage certain kinds of behavior, even after we’ve stopped playing them? Could we make Carleton itself a bit better–or at least more fun–if we gamified certain aspects of life here? To aid our exploration, we’ll draw on readings from multiple genres and employ a variety of research methods to analyze games from social, textual, and design perspectives. This course will also include weekly lab sessions on Wednesday evenings (6:15-8:30PM). Students will be required to attend at least eight out of ten lab sessions.
Prerequisites:Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
6 credits; AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1; offered Fall 2024 · George Cusack -
IDSC 100: Measured Thinking: Reasoning with Numbers about World Events, Health, Science and Social Issues
This interdisciplinary course addresses one of the signal features of contemporary academic, professional, public, and personal life: a reliance on information and arguments involving numbers. We will examine how numbers are used and misused in verbal, statistical, and graphical form in discussions of world events, health, science, and social issues.
Prerequisites:Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information.
6 credits; AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1, QRE, Quantitative Reasoning; offered Fall 2024 · Neil Lutsky -
IDSC 101: Undergraduate Bridge Experience
The Carleton Undergraduate Bridge Experience is a six-week program designed to review quantitative skills and explore how these quantitative skills are relevant to disciplines ranging from biology and physics to economics and psychology. Topics may include functions (linear, exponential, logarithmic), geometry, trigonometry, and analysis and graphical representation of data sets. Students will work in teams on several activities, including exploring Carleton-specific data sets that can be used tell a story about the College and collaborating on problems that explore how particular quantitative skills are used in the sciences and social sciences. In addition, students review and practice their quantitative skills through self-paced work.
Prerequisites: Student is a member of the UG Bridge Experience Student Cohort 5 credits; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; not offered 2024–2025 -
IDSC 103: Student Conversations about Diversity and Community
In this course students participate in peer-led conversations about diversity and community at Carleton. Students complete readings and engage in experiential exercises that invite them to reflect on their own social identities and their attitudes toward race, gender, class, and sexuality. By taking risks and engaging in honest conversations and self-reflection, students work together to understand differences and to explore how to build communities that are welcoming and open to diversity. Students keep a weekly journal and write two reflective essays that are graded by faculty members. 2 credits; No Exploration; not offered 2024–2025 -
IDSC 110: Thinking with Numbers: Using Math and Data in Context
This course will enhance students’ quantitative skills and provide opportunities to apply those skills to authentic problems. Topics covered will vary depending on students in the class; possible topics include unit conversions, significant figures and estimation, exponents, logarithms, algebra, geometry, probability, and statistics. We will explore how these skills are relevant in contexts ranging from making personal finance decisions to understanding medical research reports. Prerequisites: Student is a member of the UG Bridge Experience Student Cohort 1 credit; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024 · Lin Winton -
IDSC 111: Perspectives on the Humanities
What are the humanities? Come find out in eight class sessions exploring different humanistic fields and disciplines. Each week, a humanities professor will visit our class to discuss their work as well as exciting new trends in their disciplines. We’ll learn how different humanities disciplines think about evidence, make arguments, and conduct research in the service of exploring fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Students will discuss an array of humanistic topics in a low-stakes environment. This course is especially recommended for students interested in exploring the variety of possible majors and minors within the Humanities.
1 credit; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Winter 2025 · Baird Jarman -
IDSC 141: Computer Science Program: Computing with Context: Alan Turing, Gender, and Computing
This course will address a cluster of topics related to a broad gender-based context for computing. The starting point is Alan Turing himself: a hero for his code-breaking work during the war, Turing was also a gay man chemically castrated by the British government who (likely) died by suicide after enduring that treatment. The course will spiral outward from Turing to include a broader set of topics related to gender and sexuality in computing, ranging from Turing’s era to the present. Specific topics will vary based on the interests of available experts in aspects of gender and computing. Prerequisites:Acceptance in the Carleton OCS History of Computing in England program.
2 credits; No Exploration; not offered 2024–2025 -
IDSC 198: FOCUS Colloquium
This colloquium is designed to give students participating in the Focusing on Cultivating Scientists program an opportunity to learn and use skills in scientific study, reasoning, and modeling. The topics of this project-based colloquium will vary each term, and allow students to develop competencies in areas relevant to multiple science disciplines. Prerequisites:Student is a member of the FOCUS Colloquium cohort.
2 credits; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025 · Anna Rafferty -
IDSC 202: MMUF Research Seminar
This seminar develops the skills needed to engage in and communicate advanced research. Each participant will work and present regularly on their ongoing research projects, and participate actively in an ongoing series of workshops and conferences. The seminar will also discuss in depth the nature of academia as institution and culture, and the role of diversity in the production of knowledge and teaching in American higher education. Open only to students with MMUF fellow status. 2 credits; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025 · Cherlon Ussery -
IDSC 203: Talking about Diversity
This course prepares students to facilitate peer-led conversations about diversity in the Critical Conversations Program. Students learn about categories and theories related to social identity, power, and inequality, and explore how identities including race, gender, class, and sexual orientation affect individual experience and communal structures. Students engage in experiential exercises that invite them to reflect on their own social identities and their reactions to difference, diversity, and conflict. Students are required to keep a weekly journal and to participate in class leadership. Participants in this class may apply to facilitate sections of IDSC 103, a 2-credit student-led course in winter term. Prerequisites:Student has been approved for registration and is a member of the IDSC 203 cohort
6 credits; S/CR/NC; No Exploration, IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies; offered Winter 2025 · Sharon Akimoto, Trey Williams -
IDSC 235: Perspectives in Public Health
This course will explore the many dimensions of public health within the United States and provide an introduction to community based work and research. Public health is by nature interdisciplinary and the course will address local public health issues through the lenses of social, biological, and physical determinants of health. In addition to readings and discussions, the course will incorporate the expertise of visiting public health practitioners and include site visits to local public health agencies. Students will work collaboratively with a community partner on a public health-related civic engagement project selected during Fall term and continued during Winter Break. This is the first course of a two course winter break program. 3 credits; No Exploration; not offered 2024–2025 -
IDSC 236: Public Health in Practice
This course is the second part of a two-term sequence beginning with Perspectives in Public Health. Over the winter break, students will spend two weeks exploring a variety of public health organizations both locally (Minneapolis/St. Paul) and nationally. During the winter term, students will complete their final public health-related civic engagement project in collaboration with a community partner, set their individual project back into the wider context of public health, and prepare to present their experience to a broader audience. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): IDSC 235 – Perspectives in Public Health in immediately preceding term with grade of C- or better.
6 credits; not offered 2024–2025 -
IDSC 238: Vaccines: Science, Skeptics, and Stakeholders
Vaccines are often touted as one of humankind’s greatest biomedical achievements. They have undoubtedly prevented hundreds of millions of deaths from infectious diseases since their discovery. Yet, there remain many obstacles that prevent their wider development and dissemination. Among these are the technological challenges associated with vaccine development, the well-funded anti-vaccination movements that often thrive on and spread misinformation, and economic hurdles that affect the production and equitable distribution of vaccines. Through an interdisciplinary lens that incorporates material from biology, psychology, and economics, this course will allow students to reach an integrated understanding of vaccines. 6 credits; No Exploration; offered Spring 2025 · Ken Abrams -
IDSC 240: Nudging Our Way to a Better World
This discussion-based seminar, open to all students, will examine the most common cognitive biases that keep us from making good decisions—and will explore the potential of behavioral science to produce better outcomes in areas ranging from saving the planet from environmental ruin to promoting more gender equality and increasing organ donation. Along the way, we will examine the controversy surrounding the work of two famous behavioral scientists accused of falsifying data on a massive scale and producing impossible-to-replicate results. Together we will wrestle with the question, “Can behavioral science save the world?”
2 credits; S/CR/NC; SI, Social Inquiry; offered Fall 2024 · Andrew Morrison -
IDSC 250: Color!
If you had to explain to a blind person the nature of color, how would you describe it? Is it a property of objects, oscillations of an electric field, a feature of how the eye generates electrochemical signals to send to the brain, or perhaps a property of the experiences themselves? This team-taught course takes a multidisciplinary approach to color, drawing from physics, psychology, and philosophy. We will explore topics such as the nature of light, visual anatomy, the process by which light is converted to a neural code, color mixing, linguistic differences in color processing, and how color leads us to confront the tension that sometimes exists between appearance and reality. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): One Introductory PHIL or PSYC course higher than 110 or One Introductory PHYS course higher than 130 with a grade of C- or better.
6 credits; No Exploration; offered Winter 2025 · Julia Strand -
IDSC 251: Windows on the Good Life
Human beings are always and everywhere challenged by the question: What should I do to spend my mortal time well? One way to approach this ultimate challenge is to explore some of the great cultural products of our civilization–works that are a delight to read for their wisdom and artfulness. This series of two-credit courses will explore a philosophical dialogue of Plato in the fall, a work from the Bible in the winter, and a pair of plays by Shakespeare in the spring. The course can be repeated for credit throughout the year and in subsequent years. 2 credits; S/CR/NC; HI, Humanistic Inquiry; offered Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025 · Laurence Cooper -
IDSC 257: Sense of Place: Art and Ecology in Tallgrass Prairie
This project is a collaboration between two courses—Grassland Ecology and Field Drawing—that will foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the Tallgrass Prairie Ecosystem. Students will work together to develop a project that explores how ecological study and artistic expression can deepen their understanding of this landscape. The course will involve field trips in the Carleton Arboretum, guest speakers, directed readings and culminate in a gallery exhibition. 1 – 2 credit; No Exploration; not offered 2024–2025 -
IDSC 258: Consensus or Contentious? Controversies in Science Then and Now
Almost every global challenge confronting humankind requires some level of engagement with science and technology. However, finding solutions to our most pressing problems also requires an understanding of how science operates within its social, political, and cultural context. This course will explore the relationship between science and society by examining a series of controversies in science from both the past and the present. We will investigate topics such as biological and social concepts of race, the use of unethically obtained scientific results, the ethics of genomics research, legislation over vaccination mandates, “parachute” science, and climate change denial. Examining the role of science in society will help us understand issues related to the use of evidence, expertise, and the relationship between science and politics. By wrestling with current and historic scientific controversies, we will examine the ways in which scientific disagreements are often as much about values as they are about research methods. 2 credits; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024 · Antony Adler, Rika Anderson -
IDSC 280: Learning from Internships
Carleton does not grant credit for internships, but valuable off-campus learning experiences can be integrated into the academic program. Although the specific nature of internship experiences will vary, internships are opportunities to apply and extend one's academic skills and interests into work in non-academic settings. This course will involve carefully monitored work experiences in which a student has intentional learning goals. Achieving these goals will be measured through reflective writing assignments, as well as written work in connection with assigned readings. Recommended Preparation: An internship and learning contract approved by the Career Center Director of Internships. The internship must be a minimum of 6 weeks and 180 hours and approved in advance by the instructor and the Career Center Internship Program Director.
Prerequisites:This course requires permission from the instructor.
To request permission, click this link and fill out the request form.
Please note: the link will open in a new window. Once you have received permission from the instructor, you will be able to return to this page to register for the course.
1 credit; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025 · Yansi Pérez -
IDSC 285: Ethics of Civic Engagement
This course explores vexing ethical questions raised in academic civic engagement practice. With structured reflection on students’ varied civic engagement experiences and a group project aligned with the instructor’s work, students will consider questions arising from asymmetries of power, the relationships between scholarship and advocacy, scholarly and community knowledges, empathy with others and a student’s own moral commitments, and practices of civic engagement and community organizing. Offered biennially by rotating faculty, course themes will vary accordingly. The 2023 theme is Indigenous engagement in Minnesota. 3 credits; not offered 2024–2025 -
IDSC 289: Science Fellows Research Colloquium
This colloquium develops the skills needed to engage in and communicate scientific and mathematical research. Topics will vary each term, but will include searching and reading the primary literature and communicating results orally and via posters. The colloquium will also explore the landscape of academic scientific research and how to negotiate the expectations of being a research group member. Prerequisites:This course requires permission from the instructor.
To request permission, click this link and fill out the request form.
Please note: the link will open in a new window. Once you have received permission from the instructor, you will be able to return to this page to register for the course.
1 credit; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024, Spring 2025 · Rob Thompson -
IDSC 298: FOCUS Sophomore Colloquium
This colloquium is designed for sophomore students participating in the Focusing on Cultivating Scientists program. It will provide an opportunity to participate in STEM-based projects on campus and in the community. The topics of this project-based colloquium will vary each term. Prerequisites:Student has completed any of the following course(s): IDSC 198 – Focus Colloquium with a grade of C- or better during their first year.
1 credit; S/CR/NC; No Exploration; offered Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025 · Rika Anderson, Deborah Gross