Interdisciplinary Studies

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.