The Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Program is predicated on the idea that a full understanding of the character and cultural significance of science and technology requires an interdisciplinary approach involving training in science along with scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.
Majors in Science, Technology, and Society will:
To understand knowledge-making practices within the disciplines of science, and experience those practices directly through laboratory sciences, mathematics, and/or engineering.
To examine science, technology, and medicine as historical practices and as social institutions, and able to explain the theories, concepts, and methods used in such examination.
To analyze in depth the way social and cultural conditions interact with a particular aspect of science, technology, or medicine.
To recognize and analyze ethically significant aspects of STEM practices, artifacts, and ideas.
To develop individual interests, through a thesis or research paper that engages a technological controversy, a policy problem, or other application of STS theory and method to a STEM issue.
To demonstrate the ability to weave the major’s different strands together in an intellectually robust way, through a senior thesis, the senior integrative seminar, or comparable capstone experience.
To be well prepared for graduate work and future careers requiring engagement with the social and cultural significance of scientific and technological developments, such as the health sciences, science writing, design and engineering, public policy, environmental studies, law, or academia.