Science Courses for the Non-Major

Listed below are courses that departments design for non-majors and should be used by students looking to explore a subject and fulfill requirements. They (mostly) have no prerequisites and are themselves not prerequisite for more advanced courses in the departments.

Many introductory courses (REL 1, GEOG 1, PSYC 1 etc.) can fulfill this same function.  The difference is that these are designed as an entree into a major and are often prerequisites for the major. The courses listed below are specifically designed for the non-major, although some may fulfill prerequisites for upper-level major courses.

• Note that the QDS requirement can be filled also with: LING 1 (Introduction to Linguistics), LING 15 (Historical Linguistics), and other courses in Linguistics, and PHIL 6 (Logic and Language), GOVT 10 (Quantitative Political Analysis), ECON 10 (Intro to Statistical methods), MSS 15 (Intro to Data Analysis), PSYC 10 (Experimental Design, Methodology, and Data Analysis Procedures), or SOCY 10 (Quantitative Analysis of Social Data)
• Note that the TAS requirement can be filled with: MUS 3 (Music and Technology), PHIL 26 (Philosophy and computers), or MSS 36 (Mathematical Models in Social Science).  There are a number of Engineering “major” courses that have few or no prerequisites and have been successfully taken by non majors, including ENGS 31 (Digital Electronics), ENGS 21 (Intro to Engineering, requires Math 3), and ENGS 51 (System Dynamics, requires MATH 3)
• Note that the SCI and SLA requirements can be filled with: ANTH 6 (Introduction to Biological Anthropology), GEOG 5 (Global Climate Change) and certain other courses in Geography, and Psychological and Brain Sciences.

The Timetable of Courses on the Registrar’s Web site is the best tool to use when searching for courses that fulfill a certain Distributive Requirement.