General Education Requirements

How to Choose a Hu/SS Elective

Learn more about choosing a Hu/SS Elective for the Fall 2019 semester.

The Cluster Concept

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:

1. Culture, Arts and Media (CAM) 
2. Science, Technology and Society (STS)
3. Society, Environment and Globalization (SEG)

This integrated approach to science, technology, and the humanities and social sciences provides engineering and science majors with a concrete and focused foundation for their fields.

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. The media studies courses are required for students who major in Integrated Digital Media.

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? Courses from this cluster are also electives for STS majors and are used to fulfill the 24 credits of "restricted" electives for the major.

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. Many courses in this cluster are also generally “concentration” courses for SUE majors.

For Fulfilling the School of Engineering Humanities and Social Sciences Core Requirement (24 credits)

All students at the School of Engineering must complete a minimum of 24 credits in humanities and social science courses. Some majors have additional requirements beyond those listed here.

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

Fall Semester: EXPOS-UA 1

Spring semester: EXPOS-UA 2

Note: These courses are offered by the NYU Expository Writing Program. For more information, please visit the Expository Writing Program.

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

Students may choose 4 humanities or social science courses from any TCS cluster. These 4 electives 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 constraints:

• At least 1 must be a 3xxx/4xxx level humanities or social science elective; and
• At least 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: All School of Engineering Students must take their Writing Intensive Course at the School of Engineering- this requirement cannot be filled at other NYU schools**

The following courses are offered by the department on a regular basis. However, not every courses is offered in a particular 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.

Prior to Fall 2014, these requirements were based on 3-credit courses. For more information regarding the 3-credit courses versus 4-credit courses that are now given, please contact the TCS Department at TCS@nyu.edu.

• Cluster 1: Culture, Arts and Media (CAM)
• Cluster 2: Science, Technology and Society (STS)
• Cluster 3: Society, Environment and Globalization (SEG)

SEG Electives from Other Departments

FIN-UY 2003 Economic Foundations of Finance

Courses in the CAM cluster explore 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 the disciplines of philosophy, media studies, music, literary studies, art history, rhetoric, and anthropology.

CAM TCS Electives

The following satisfy a TCS elective:

AH-UY 2114 History of Art as Technology

AH-UY 3214 Contemporary Art, Electronic Art, and Technology

CAM-UY 2014/W Stem and Theater

CAM-UY 3004 Special Topics in CAM

EN 2114/W Machines Made of Words: Poetry as Design

EN-UY 2134/W The Novella: Between the Short Story and the Novel

EN-UY 2174/W The World's Greatest Journeys

EN-UY 2194/W The Rise of the Graphic Novel

EN-UY 2204W Science Journalism

EN-UY 2244 Shakespeare and the Creative Imagination

EN-UY 2254/W Literature and War

EN-UY 2324/W Technologies of Literary Production

EN-UY 2334/W The Invention of the Word

EN-UY 2354/W Inventing America: Nation, Culture, Self

EN-UY 2414/W The City and Literature

EN-UY 3144/W Formal Approaches to Art & Poetry 

EN-UY 3154 Fantasy Workshop

EN-UY-3194/W Ethical Question in Literature 

EN-UY 3434W Machines Made of Words II: Designing Poetry

EN-UY 3814/W The Environment and Literature 

MD-UY 2314 Interative Narrative

PS-UY 3694 Humor and Modern Media

Courses in the STS cluster explore the interrelationships between science and technology and between science and society. STS unites multiple disciplines, including history, philosophy, rhetoric, literary studies, and sociology, to investigate these interrelationships. 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?

STS TCS Electives

The following satisfy a TCS elective:

EN-UY 2424 Medicine and Literature 

PL-UY 2004 Symbolic Logic

PL-UY 3004/W Metalogic

STS-UY 2004/W Science, Technology, and Society 

STS-UY 2134 Philosophy of Science, Technology and Science in China and India

STS-UY 2144 Ethics and Technology

STS-UY 2204 Philosophy of Technology

STS-UY 2224/W Science and Sexuality 

STS-UY 2234 Introduction to the History of Technology

STS-UY 2244/W Magic, Medicine, and Science

STS-UY 2254 From Heat Engines to Black Holes

STS-UY 2264/W Addressing Public Policy Issues in the Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

STS-UY 2274 Space and Spacetime

STS-UY 2294 Quantum Mechanics and Information

TS-UY 2314 It's About Time

STS-UY 2364 History of Aviation and Aviation Technology

STS-UY 2374 The Ship

STS-UY 2444/W History and Philosophy of Internet Technology

STS-UY 2554 Science and Pseudoscience

STS-UY 2624/W The Rhetoric of Science 

STS-UY 2634 Psychology of the Internet

STS-UY 2644 Creativity and Innovation

STS-UY 2664 Intelligence- Real and Artificial

STS-UY 2904 Special Topics in STS

STS 3004/W Seminar in Science and Technology Studies

STS-UY 3204/W Science and Difference

STS-UY 3214 Science and Feminism

STS-UY 3234 The Phenomenon of Life 

STS-UY 3244 The History of Light

STS-UY 3254/W Philosophy of Science

STS-UY 3264 Physics, Information and computing

STS-UY 3284 Relativity and Spacetime 

STS-UY 3604 Psychology of Internet Security

STS-UY 3624 Science and Technology in the Literary Sphere

STS-UY- 3904 Special Topics in STS

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

SEG TCS Electives

The following satisfy a TCS elective:

HI-UY 2353 A History of NYC Transit and the Development of NYC

HI-UY 2514/W Introduction to New York City History

HI-UY 3034/W History of New York's Urban Infrastrcture 

HI-UY 3254/W History of Mass Media

HI-UY 4334W Seminar in Urban Infrastructure History

PS-UY 2324W Environmental Psychology  

PS-UY 2724 Human Factors in Engineering Design

PS-UY 3164 Health Psychology 

PS-UY 3724 Psychology of Sustainability  

PS-UY 3754 Psychology of Living in Extreme Environments

SEG-UY 2184/W Beyong Oil- Fueling Tomorrow's Vehicles

SEG-UY 2194/W Writing About Nature and the Environment 

STS-UY 3814 Social Psychology of Virtual Worlds

URB-UY 2024/W Design of Cities

URB-UY 2034 Humans in the Urban Environment

URB-UY 2044 Methods for Studying Urban Environments

URB-UY 2054/W Introduction to Urban Policy

URB-UY 2064 Introduction to Urban Planning

URB-UY 2224 Natural Environment of New York City

URB-UY 2234 Natural Environmental Catastrophes and Cities

URB-UY 3034 Evidence- Based Design

URB-UY 3214 Cities in Developing Countries

URB-UY 3314 History and Design of Urban Parks

URB-UY 3354 Urban Impact Assessment

URB-UY 3834 Special Topics in SUE

Tandon students have the opportunity to complete their humanities requirements at other NYU Schools. The TCS Department has created a list of courses that satisfy the humanities requirement. If you've discovered a course not on this list, please email TCS@nyu.edu and we will gladly review the course to determine if it meets our humanities requirements.

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.