Core Studies
The Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education offers a core group of required courses in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. Students take these courses unless exempted by their advisor on the basis of equivalent prior college courses. See an academic advisor for more details.
Core Humanities Course Descriptions
IAS 10000, Core Humanities I is an interdisciplinary, humanities-based writing course. Reading includes a wide range of essays, each proposing a groundbreaking theory pertinent to a particular discipline. These essays will be matched with short fiction and essays providing a social context for the theories proposed by writers such as Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Dr. Martin Luther King, Carl Jung, Alice Walker and Virginia Woolf. In response to these combinations, text-based student essays of at least 750 words will pair interdisciplinary theory with a social context. The course emphasizes critical reading, thinking, and writing skills as well as various rhetorical approaches to the composition of the academic essay.
IAS 10100, Core Humanities II: Also an interdisciplinary, humanities-based writing course, Core Humanities II builds on critical reading, thinking and writing skills acquired in Core Humanities I. Reading includes longer theoretical essays by Charles Darwin, Thomas Kuhn, Georg Simmel, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Hannah Arendt paired with social context writers such as Thomas Eisner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O’Connor and Michael Gold. Text-based student essays of at least 1250 words responding to these combinations will include research.
IAS 10200, 10300: Work, Family, and the Community (Core Social Science) This course introduces students to the methodologies and approaches of the various social sciences by exploring themes and problems associated with the development of the modern world. The course focuses on work and workers in various social and historical contexts. Prereq.: IAS 10000 and IAS 10100. 4 hr./wk.; 4 cr. per course
IAS 10400, 10500: Nature and Human Beings (Core Science) This course introduces students to fundamental ideas in the biological and physical sciences as well as the interaction of science with society. One of the important aims will be to develop an understanding of the scientific method with an emphasis on model building and its wide range of potential applicability. Another important goal will be to convey an appreciation of both the possibilities and limitations of science and technology. Prereq.: IAS 10000, IAS 10100, IAS 10200, IAS 10300. 4 hr./wk.; 4 cr. per course.
