General Education Requirements

How to Choose a Tandon Humanities (HUSS) Elective

Learn more about Tandon's humanities and social sciences course offerings for the Fall 2021 semester.

                                                                                         Last Updated 3.31.21

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 3000/4000 level humanities or social science elective; and
• 1 must be an Advanced Seminar, identifiable by course number 4504
• The same course, or two different courses may be used to fulfill the Advanced Seminar requirement and the 3000/4000 requirement. (Example: STS-UY 4504 can count as both requirements listed above)

Important Notes

• As of the Fall 2021 semester, the Writing Intensive requirement will be replaced by the Advanced Seminar as a graduation requirement
• Students must take their Advanced Seminar requirement at Tandon- this requirement cannot be filled at other NYU schools
• The TCS department abbreviates level 2000 to level 2, level 3000 to level 3, and level 4000 to level 4

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 -Use the arrows at the bottom of the excel to see all the courses categorized by NYU school/global campus. Please note, you must be signed in with your NYU email/NET ID to access the list.

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