General Education Requirements

How to Choose a Tandon Humanities (HUSS) Elective

Learn more about Tandon Humanities electives for the Fall 2020 semester.

                                                                                         Last Updated 07/01/2020

24 credits of Humanities and Social Sciences, as explained below:

1. First-Year Writing Requirement (2 Courses, 8 credits)

Fall Semester: EXPOS-UA 1

Spring semester: EXPOS-UA 2

These courses are offered by the NYU Expository Writing Program. 

2. Humanities and Social Science Elective Requirement (4 courses, 16 credits)

Students must complete 4 humanities or social science courses. These 4 courses can be within a single cluster or across multiple clusters. For optimal breadth of experience, TCS encourages students to take electives across clusters and/or across disciplines within a cluster. These 4 humanities and social science electives must satisfy the following:

• 1 must be a 3xxx/4xxx level humanities or social science elective; and
• 1 must be a writing-intensive elective, labeled by “W” in the course listings the semester it is offered.
• The same course, or two different courses may be used to fulfill the writing-intensive requirement and the 3xxx/4xxx requirement.

**Please note: Students must take their Writing Intensive course at Tandon- this requirement cannot be filled at other NYU schools**

The TCS Department offers elective courses that fulfill Tandon's undergraduate requirement for courses in humanities and social sciences — part of the undergraduate core curriculum. These courses explore the relations among science, technology, and society from three general approaches and modes of inquiry:

Culture, Arts and Media (CAM)

The CAM cluster explores how cultural practices and artifacts in a wide range of media reflect, influence, and interact with developments in science and technology. Courses are based on philosophy, media studies, music, literary studies, art history, rhetoric, and anthropology. 

Science, Technology and Society (STS)

STS cluster courses explore the interrelationships among science, technology, culture, and society. STS unites and investigates a myriad of disciplines, including history, philosophy, rhetoric, literary studies, and sociology. The questions posed are: How do science and technology shape society? How do social processes frame scientific and technological enterprises? What is the relationship between the content of scientific and technological knowledge and the social and intellectual context in which it is created? 

Society, Environment and Globalization (SEG)

Courses in the SEG cluster address the way the critical areas of society, environment, and globalization are interlinked and how they affect the experience of modern life. Coming from the complementary perspectives of the humanities and social sciences, SEG courses provide students with a broad and multicultural perspective on how environmental issues and global exchange in this “flat world” are changing society, here and across the world. 

The following courses are offered by the department on a regular basis. However, each course is not offered every semester. 

Special Note About Course Descriptions: If a course number doesn't link to the course description, you can find the full description on the Tandon Bulletin.

SEG Electives from Other Departments

FIN-UY 2003 Economic Foundations of Finance

Tandon students have the opportunity to complete their humanities requirements at other NYU Schools and at other institutions. The TCS Department has created a list of approved NYU courses that satisfy the humanities requirement.

Please note: Your Writing Intensive course cannot be fulfilled at another NYU school; it must be taken at Tandon.

Credits from NYUs School of Professional Studies (SPS) are not accepted at Tandon. 

Important Links

List of approved HUSS courses at other NYU Schools (please use the arrows at the bottom of the excel to see all the courses categorized by NYU school/global campus)

Form to evaluate NYU course for HUSS credit (a NYU course that is not on the list above)

Form to evaluate a non-NYU course for HUSS credit (completing a course at another institution)