Skip to main content

Why Study Science in Human Culture?

power linesThe Science in Human Culture Program offers undergraduate students the choice of an adjunct major or a minor field meant to prepare them to confront the impact of science, medicine, and technology on society—and on their own lives. The program welcomes pre-medical students, science majors and engineering students interested in thinking beyond the problem sets assigned in their specialized courses, as well as students in the humanities and social sciences who aspire to overcome the division of knowledge that accompanied the rise of modern science.

Students join the program because it offers them a chance to integrate their understanding of science, medicine, technology, and the environment into a liberal arts education, and because it offers them the freedom to tailor an adjunct major or minor to their own particular interests. Above all, the major appeals to students who dispute the claim that human knowledge can be sharply divided into disciplinary fields.

Here are some of the questions students in the program address:

SHC also allows students to choose from several courses and focus on topics of interest to them. Thus, SHC is ideal for pre-medical students who want to understand the implications of medical practice, the ethical dilemmas faced by physicians, and the social and economic pressures confronting medicine. SHC also welcomes students majoring in the social sciences who are interested in public health, environmental change, or technology policy, and who understand that these problems beg for interdisciplinary thinking. SHC can also be an excellent preparation for students planning to enter graduate school in history, philosophy, sociology, or anthropology. And finally, SHC can be a valuable tool for engineers or scientists who want to see how their chosen disciplines have shaped—and been shaped by—the wider world.

One of the main purposes of a liberal arts education is to break down the barriers between disciplines and train students to treat human problems "in-the-round." Science in Human Culture gives students that opportunity.