Read
biographies of alumni to understand how their career trajectories were influenced by their curricular or co-curricular choices.
Planning Your Course of Study
- Declaring a major or minor in Interdisciplinary Science
If you are interested in becoming an Interdisciplinary Science major or minor, visit
IS Degree Requirements to:
-
Review the Program
Requirement Worksheet (checklist) and Suggested
Four-Year Schedule of courses to meet the requirements
- Complete the Personal Statement
Selecting Courses
Courses offered in this program incorporate science, math, and technology in the context of health and the environment. To see a list of courses offered in the major and minor, click on the appropriate section below; track your progress using the Interdisciplinary
Science program requirement worksheet/checklist for the year in which you declare. NOTE: Not all courses are offered every semester or every year. We have indicated the course rotations (spring or fall semester, or alternate years) and which components of the major it satisfies.
Identifying Courses
During registration, use the
Lang course finder to identify Interdisciplinary Science courses. Students are strongly encouraged to supplement the IS curriculum with courses in other areas of study, depending on interest and in consultation with academic advisors. For example, students have completed courses offered by Anthropology, Environmental
Studies, Integrated Arts, History, Psychology, and Urban Studies.
Students can search in the
University Course Catalog for courses that address these topics by keyword in title, title and description, and/or subject code (LSCI = Lang Science, LMTH = Lang Math, NFDS = Food Studies, UENV = Environmental Studies, PSAM = Parsons Art, Media, and Technology, NINT =
International Affairs, EPMS = Environmental Policy and Sustainable Management, LPSY/NPSY = Psychology, LANT/NANT/GANT = Anthropology, UURB = Urban Studies, UGLB = Global Studies, LCST = Culture and Media Studies).
Some courses are offered only in the fall or spring semesters, others in alternate years. Students interested in knowing the frequency of specific course offerings can review Interdisciplinary Science courses offered in various terms at the
Lang Course Finder.
Courses in Related Programs That Connect to Science and Math
Majors and minors are encouraged to supplement the required curriculum with courses from other areas of study. Below are courses offered by other departments and schools that incorporate science, math, and technology in the context of culture, social justice, history, and sustainability. Courses numbered 4500 are open to undergraduate juniors and seniors. Courses numbered 5000 or higher are graduate-level and require permission of the instructor. Courses that have been popular in the past include the following:
PSAM 5860A Currents: Data Structures
PUDM 2700 Information Visualization (permission)
LANT 3041 Ape Cultures and Human Nature
LANT 6141 Apes and Anthropologists
NANT 3520 Media, Health, Culture, and Social Change
LLSJ 3505 Visualizing Data
LPSY 2042 Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology
LPSY 2772 Culture, Ethnicity, and Mental Health
NPSY 3843 Health Psychology
LEDU 3961 HealthClass 2.0 Practicum
UENV 3425 Student Environmental Activism Seminar Practicum
UENV 4703 Social Justice and the Food System
UENV 3200 Spatial Thinking with GIS
UGLB 3716 Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice
LECO 2029 Economics of Disasters
LHIS 2221 Power and Biology: The Global South and the History of Science
LHIS 3027 From the Plague to AIDS and Beyond: Global Histories of Disease
GANT 6125 Anthropology of Bioethics and Biomedicine
NEPS 5001 Climate Change and Cities
NEPS 5006 Principles of Environmental Science (seniors only)
Courses in STEAMD (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math, and Design)
These courses are open to all students and can be found across many departments. Courses that have been popular in the past include the following:
LNGC 1XXX Biology, Art, and Social Justice
LINA 2040 The Art of Information
PSAM 5960 Bioart Studio
PSCE 3030 Color and Light
LMTH 2104 Visualizing Patterns and Space
LSCI 2031 Light and Color
LSCI 3045 Imaging Life
PUDM 2700 Information Visualization
LMTH 2105 Making Math and Art
LINA 3040 Arts and Neuroscience
PSCE 5003 Topic: Sustainable Design
PSCE 5035 Topic: Water
PGTE 5598 Data Visualization
Fellowships and Funding
Internships
and Research Experiences
Grants
- Graduate School Opportunities and
Resources:
Presenting
Your Work
Learn how to
showcase your work. Turn your semester project, paper, or research study into a poster presentation and gradually progress to a full-length publication or oral presentation.
Opportunities specific to health and the environment
Find programs that combine academic coursework with experiential learning. Themes include the environment, bioethics, biostats and big data, and stem cell research.
The New School is committed to the promotion of practices and policies that support social justice. A university-wide committee made up of student, staff, and faculty as well as many student organizations seeks to achieve this goal through programming, curriculum, and community action on and off campus.
Listed here are resources to connect your work to social justice. Some organizations, projects, and initiatives appear to follow only one thread, but if you look deeper you will see that most are interdisciplinary to their core. Use these networks to develop the ideas in courses or in life and look to collaborate and construct communities of practice that can nourish your curiosity and foster lifelong learning and service.
- Ashoka U Changemakers Exchange for Social Entrepreneurs (NS students often offered discount). The New School is part of the Ashoka U Exchange, the largest global convening for social entrepreneurship education. The Exchange brings together 650 individuals (faculty, students, and social entrepreneurs) representing more than 150 institutions from 40 countries. Students are often offered a discounted ticket price of $350 (regular tickets are $850). The Exchange seeks to answer the question: How can universities spark ideas big enough to change the world? The Exchange seeks to provide venues for experiential learning, community building, and collaboration.
- Democracy and Diversity Fellows. With the conviction that adequate social and human capital is a crucial element in developing a culture of democratic governance, the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS) creates unique study programs that bring together civic-minded students, junior scholars, and nonprofit professionals from around the world. Its flagship projects, the Democracy & Diversity Summer Institutes conducted in Poland (July) and South Africa (January), are organized in partnership with key academic and civic actors in the region. Please take a look at the information about the two most recent Democracy & Diversity Institutes — the 2012 Institute in Wroclaw and the 2012 Institute in Johannesburg. Application deadlines are in the fall and spring, and a few undergraduates are selected to join a group of faculty and graduate students.
- Lang’s Office of Civic Engagement and Social Justice. This office supports events, workshops, and community partnerships as well as awards for students who need financial support to carry out a project that serves the mission of social justice. The office also supports the Gural Scholars program and summer internship support grants. Its newsletter summarizes opportunities and highlights the work being done.
- Lang Opportunity Awards. Financial awards to support innovative student-directed projects: study abroad, summer fellow programs, etc.
- Mohn Family Science and Social Justice Fellows. An endowment provided by the parents of an alumna of the Interdisciplinary Science program provides merit-based fellowships to students and graduating seniors in need of financial support to carry out work that promotes environmental justice and health equity. A number of local organizations have partnered with the program to offer research experiences and internships that meet these goals. Contact: Katayoun Chamany, Interdisciplinary Science Chair, at chamanyk@newschool.edu.
- New Challenge. An annual ideas competition that offers students up to $10,000 to develop tangible real-world projects, products, organizations, and the like aimed at solving problems in diverse communities.
- The New School Peer Health Advocates. The New You is The New School’s Peer Health Advocacy program, advised by Wellness and Health Promotion staff. Volunteer student leaders with a passion for health develop programs and services for their fellow students. Working with one another and the health educators, these Peer Health Advocates (PHAs) receive training in health education, promotion, advocacy, and leadership skills. They may facilitate interactive health education programs in classes, residence halls, and public spaces and online or develop promotional materials and Web-based applications related to health themes. There are opportunities for specific training in health-related areas of personal interest.
- The New School Higher Education Opportunity Program. Provides academic support and financial assistance to young people who might not meet all the traditional college admission criteria but show promise of succeeding in college.
- New School Student Organizations. This list of student organizations spans Feminist Writers, Students for Social Justice, Sisters on the Runway, Recycled Runway, the BriColab Art Initiative, Musical Theater, Theater Collective, and Slow Food.
- New School Venture Lab. Launched as part of a university-wide Impact Entrepreneurship Initiative (IEI), the Venture Lab is designed to support high-potential student entrepreneurs seeking to develop and launch financially sustainable ventures with the potential for scalable impact. Both graduate students and upper undergraduates (juniors and seniors) across The New School have applied to the Venture Lab. Twelve teams have been selected to participate in the first Venture Lab spring 2018), which is structured as a UTNS course. Contact: Elizabeth Werbe, Associate Director of the Impact Entrepreneurship Initiative, at werbee@newschool.edu.
- Social Innovation Initiative. Students collaborate with other New School stakeholders to design new products, services, organizations, policies, technologies, and systems that improve lives.
- Social Justice@The New School. A hub for all social justice-related events, posts, resources, and opportunities, including grants to host social justice events. The University Social Justice Committee is made up of faculty, students, and staff (applications due in September) and has a Resources Guide with a searchable database and a hub on the fifth floor of the University Center.
- Student Leadership: Leadership Awards. The New School's Office of Student Leadership and Involvement provides several leadership workshops and retreats throughout the year in collaboration with campus partners. Opportunities include the Emerging Leaders Program, leadership development programs, and retreats.
- The Vera List New School Art Collection Awards are given out annually to New School students who write or create visual narratives in film and media inspired by works in the university's art collection. The awards were established in 1996 by the late Vera List, a life trustee of The New School, and are distributed by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. Each year, a new theme is chosen to address multifaceted inquiry into the nature of the material world. The awards celebrate a range of media formats, with a first-place award of $400 and a second-place award of $200 in each category. Winners are selected by a jury of prominent faculty members and administrators. The prize-winning pieces are edited by professional art critics in collaboration with their authors and are published in the annual award poster/site, which is designed in collaboration with illustration faculty of Parsons School of Design.
Other organizations. In addition, the Interdisciplinary Science program seeks to support scientific innovation through responsible and ethical practices. The following organizations reflect our philosophy and mission. They stay up-to-date on the challenges facing scientists and the public, and they publish blogs and journals dedicated to this interface.