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WHAT IS THE SCIENCE IN SOCIETY PROGRAM?
Wesleyan University's Science in Society Program is an interdisciplinary
undergraduate major program that encourages integrated study of the sciences
and medicine as institutions, practices, material cultures, intellectual
achievements, and constituents of culture and politics. Students who undertake
this major combine sustained study within one or more scientific fields
with work in the history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and feminist
studies of science and medicine.
Students in the Program should gain a better understanding of the richness
and complexity of scientific practices, and of the cultural and political
significance of science, technology and medicine. The sciences, and scientifically
sophisticated medicine and technology are, after all, among the most important
and far-reaching human achievements. The sciences have dramatically transformed,
and will continue to transform our lives, our ways of understanding ourselves
and the world, and even our material surroundings. A better understanding
of these changes, and enhanced skill at critical assessment of and response
to them, is a vital dimension of a liberal arts education today.
The major program is well suited for students interested in a variety
of professional and academic pursuits after graduation, since it encourages
students to integrate technical scientific understanding with a grasp of
the multiple contexts in which scientific knowledge is applied, and the
issues at stake in its application. In recent years, graduates of the Program
have gone on to advanced study in schools of medicine, public health, veterinary
medicine, social work, public policy, science journalism, and others; to
graduate study towards the Ph.D. in various sciences, or history, philosophy,
or social studies of science; and to employment in a wide range of occupations.
Wesleyan students interested in the Program should begin at least one
of the major track science course sequences during the frosh year, and
otherwise undertake a broad program of study. While the Program offers
some exploratory first-year courses, these normally do not count toward
completion of the major. Students typically begin formal coursework in
the Program itself as sophomores or juniors, after they have acquired more
substantive background in the sciences and in the study of culture and
society.
questions? email: jrouse@mail.wesleyan.edu
Science in Society Program
Wesleyan University
350 High Street
Middletown, CT 06459
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