Career and Happiness

This class is not about where in the world to seek the perfect career and happiness. Rather, it is about how to understand yourself ? your values, desires, choices, and habits ? which would prepare you for a fulfilling career and lasting happiness. Self-knowledge is more difficult to gain than knowledge about the world, as the former requires our eyes to look inward, which unfortunately is not one of our born habits.

Ready, Set, Write: Fiction Wri

Are you interested in fiction writing but don?t know where to start? In this course, students will participate in a professional-grade writer?s workshop geared for beginners. With the guidance of the instructor, an award-winning graphic novelist and ethnographic writer, they will read seminal short fiction and instructive texts and participate in group and individual writing exercises. Students will learn to talk about and analyze short fiction and will develop their own pieces through formal workshopping with peers and consultation with the instructor.

An Art Historian in Real World

Drawing on 50 years of practical experience, the instructor will discuss the ways in which art historians through history have dealt and continue to deal with questions of artistic authenticity (connoisseurship) misrepresentation (including fakes and forgeries) , forensics (the scientific tests used to answer questions about works of art), theft and cultural patrimony, artistic copyright, fair use, and photographic rights, provenance and legal ownership, censorship and the dismal history of destruction of works of art; the world market in works of art; and museum practice both historical and c

Biology & Behavior of Cat

This seminar will explore the biology and behavior of the domestic cat from an evolutionary and ecological perspective. Students will be introduced to the evolution of mammals and wild cats. The seminar will explore the domestication process and how this shaped the current behavior and biology of the domestic cat and how cat ancestry left its marks on this companion animal. The positive and negative health impacts of domestic cats will be discussed. The seminar will conclude with a discussion of feral cats, their impacts on wildlife, and their management.

Popular Culture and Literacy

What is popular culture? Is it driven by youth culture? Is youth culture monolithic? In other words, how does a study of youth culture intersect with a study of race, identity, class, and power? Also, what counts as literacy? What power, if any, is ascribed to particular types of literacy practices? Imagine if your professors studied and taught what you considered to be popular. In this seminar, we critically explore links between popular culture and literacy in and out of school contexts. As a class, we define and redefine popular culture and literacy.

The Sixth Extinction

Over the last half-billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us.

S-InteractMachineLrng:Algorith

Interactive machine learning involves an algorithm or an agent making decisions about data collection, contrasting starkly with traditional learning paradigms. Interactive data collection often enables learning with significantly less data, and it is critical in a number of applications including personalized recommendation, medical diagnosis, and dialogue systems. This seminar will focus on the design and analysis of interactive learning algorithms for settings including active learning, bandits, reinforcement learning, and adaptive sensing.

Nudge: Behavioral Economics fo

This course will be a discussion-based and cover some of the implications of behavioral economics for individual decision making and public policy. The topics will follow along with the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (2008, Yale University Press).
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