Spring 2023
Courses by Department
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Urban Greening Lab: Washington, DC - ENVST-UA 9495 or SCA-UA 9650 or ANTH-UA 9495 - 4 points
This course provides a comprehensive examination of Washington, DC’s urban ecology and approaches to urban planning, while introducing their history, and the correlations between the city’s built structure, urban nature and culture.
Stern Registration Priority and Stern Course Limit
Registration priority for Stern (Business) courses will be given to NYU Stern students. Other students will be able to register as space remains available. Please pay close attention to course notes displayed in Albert.
NYU Stern Students: It is strongly suggested that Stern students take no more than two business courses while abroad.
Business and The Environment - ECON-UB 9225 or ENVST-UA 9465 - 3 points
Environmental problems typically arise from “market failures.” This course examines several environmental issues at local, national, and international levels, with a particular focus this year on energy and climate change, but also briefly on water and population. Drawing on the theories of externalities, market failure, and mechanism design, it explores the causes of these problems and some of the potential remedies, including government regulation, “cap-and-trade,” and carbon taxes, as well as potential related business opportunities. The schedule will include lectures by relevant industry representatives.
Social Entrepreneurship - MULT-UB 9041 - 3 points
Social Entrepreneurship is an emerging and rapidly changing business field that examines the practice of identifying, starting and growing successful mission-driven for profit and nonprofit ventures, that is, organizations that strive to advance social change through innovative solutions. This course is designed to provide a socially relevant academic experience in order to help students gain in-depth insights into economic and social value creation across a number of sectors/areas including poverty alleviation, energy, health and sustainability.
Essentially, students will have the opportunity to find and test new ideas and solutions to social problems, create sustainable business models (using lean startup principles), identify funding options and alternatives, learn how to measure social impact as well as scale/grow a social enterprise to name a few. We provide students with a toolkit and frameworks that can be used in a social venture or within an existing organization to influence social change.
Registration Priority for CORE
Registration priority for CORE courses will be given to NYU CAS students. Other students will be able to register as space remains available. Please pay close attention to course notes displayed in Albert.
Expressive Culture: Museums in Washington Field Study - CORE-UA 9723 - 4 points
With its vast array of institutions dedicated to distinct cultural groupings and its formation inextricably linked to the halls of power, the museum culture in our nation’s capitol unique. Taking advantage of behind-the-scenes access to some of the most prestigious museums in the world and their staff, students explore various approaches to interpreting art and develop tools for appreciating their aesthetic experiences. We also look critically at the ways in which museums—through their policies, programs, exhibitions, and architecture—can define regional or national values, shape cultural attitudes, inform social and political views, and even affect one’s understanding of the meaning of a work of art.
Expressive Culture: Museums in Washington Field Study - Sample syllabus
International Economics - ECON-UA 9238 - 4 points
This course is not open to NYU Stern students except for students in the BPE Program.
Prerequisites: ECON-UA 1: Intro to Macroeconomics (or equivalent course or AP MACROECONOMICS WITH SCORE OF 4 OR 5) and ECON-UA 2: Intro to Microeconomics (or equivalent course or AP MICROECONOMICS WITH SCORE OF 4 OR 5)
This course focuses on international trade in goods, services, and capital. It serves as an introduction to international economic issues and as preparation for the department’s more advanced course. The issues discussed include gains from trade and their distribution; analysis of protectionism; strategic trade barriers; the trade deficit; exchange rate determination and government intervention in foreign exchange markets.
Business and The Environment - ECON-UB 9225 or ENVST-UA 9465 - 3 points
Environmental problems typically arise from “market failures.” This course examines several environmental issues at local, national, and international levels, with a particular focus this year on energy and climate change, but also briefly on water and population. Drawing on the theories of externalities, market failure, and mechanism design, it explores the causes of these problems and some of the potential remedies, including government regulation, “cap-and-trade,” and carbon taxes, as well as potential related business opportunities. The schedule will include lectures by relevant industry representatives.
Urban Greening Lab: Washington, DC - ENVST-UA 9495 or SCA-UA 9650 or ANTH-UA 9495 - 4 points
This course provides a comprehensive examination of Washington, DC’s urban ecology and approaches to urban planning, while introducing their history, and the correlations between the city’s built structure, urban nature and culture.
Experiential Learning Seminar - NODEP-UA 9982 or INDIV-UG 9600 - 4 points
Can be counted for SCA-UA Internship credit (government and non-profit placements only). Can also be counted for Politics major credit (internship with domestic policy focus only)
The seminar is designed to complement the internship fieldwork experience. In it we explore many different aspects of your internship site. The goal is to finish the semester with an in-depth understanding of the company or organization, including its approach, its policies, and the context in which it operates. We will also discuss more generally the state of the contemporary workplace and ourselves as workers. Finally, you will use the seminar to reflect critically and analytically on the internship experience and as a way to refine your own personal and professional goals.
Students who secure an internship through or with the assistance of NYU Washington, DC must confirm their spot in the program and enroll in the internship class in order to accept the internship. Students are required to pursue a minimum of 10 hours/week in their internships to earn course credit. NYU Washington, DC advises that students pursue no more than 20 hrs/week in internship commitments. If students elect to participate in an internship that exceeds the recommended number of hours, they may be advised to reduce their academic course load. Students are highly encouraged to consult NYU Washington DC staff for assistance with these decisions.
Additional information is available on the NYU Washington DC Internship webpage.
American Constitution - POL-UA 9330 or HIST-UA 9330 - 4 points
This course provides a general theoretical survey of the American Constitution, excepting its guarantee of individual rights, such as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The U.S. Constitution has endured for over two centuries as a touchstone for defining the U.S. as a sociocultural, economic, and political unit. As a textual and ideational construct, the Constitution continues to profoundly impact the fabric of American identity, political culture, and the socioeconomic actuality of those that reside under the (aegis of the) Constitution.
American Foreign Policy in the 20th Century - HIST-UA 9629 - 4 points
This course focuses on America’s role in the world beginning with the Spanish-American War of 1898 and on through the end of the Cold War, to include decisions for intervention in World Wars I and II, peacemaking in the Wilsonian style, internationalism as embodied in the League of Nations and the United Nations, and disarmament negotiations as occurred over naval arms limitation during the inter-war period and with nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Korea and Vietnam, the foreign policy of the Depression Era and of the Marshall Plan, the Open Door in China, and other aspects of United States policy and policymaking will also be illuminated. The course will demonstrate the value of utilizing multiple levels of analysis to understand the driving forces that underlie historical developments.
American Foreign Policy in the 20th Century - Sample syllabus
Experiential Learning Seminar - NODEP-UA 9982 or INDIV-UG 9600 - 4 points
Can be counted for SCA-UA Internship credit (government and non-profit placements only). Can also be counted for Politics major credit (internship with domestic policy focus only)
The seminar is designed to complement the internship fieldwork experience. In it we explore many different aspects of your internship site. The goal is to finish the semester with an in-depth understanding of the company or organization, including its approach, its policies, and the context in which it operates. We will also discuss more generally the state of the contemporary workplace and ourselves as workers. Finally, you will use the seminar to reflect critically and analytically on the internship experience and as a way to refine your own personal and professional goals.
Students who secure an internship through or with the assistance of NYU Washington, DC must confirm their spot in the program and enroll in the internship class in order to accept the internship. Students are required to pursue a minimum of 10 hours/week in their internships to earn course credit. NYU Washington, DC advises that students pursue no more than 20 hrs/week in internship commitments. If students elect to participate in an internship that exceeds the recommended number of hours, they may be advised to reduce their academic course load. Students are highly encouraged to consult NYU Washington DC staff for assistance with these decisions.
Additional information is available on the NYU Washington DC Internship webpage.
Methods & Practice: Truth, Fiction, Media and Politics - JOUR-UA 9202 - 4 points
This will be a hands-on course examining the idea of truth and spin in Washington D.C., politics, governance, journalism, science and society. It will be part overview and lecture on topics central to the course and part active reporting and writing. Spin is the Washington art of taking something and making it seem truth-y even when it’s not quite factual. This is a user’s guide for reporters and non-journalists alike. How to spot and dodge the misleading, the incomplete truth, along with the history and reasoning behind manipulation of facts. Advice from those who practice spin and those who successfully avoid it and what it’s like to be stuck as a victim of spin. To take advantage of the unique Washington location and distinct attitude in the city, students will participate in press conferences and go to public hearings on Capitol Hill in reporting roles and then write news-style articles. Invited guest speakers are from NASA, NOAA, the White House Office of Science Technology and Policy, environmental activist groups, energy lobbyists and Washington media. The intersection of the media with science, politics and economics on the issue of global warming will be a focal point of this course and how it is all spun.
Methods and Practice: Truthiness, Spin, Media & Politics - Sample Syllabus
Journalism Ethics & First Amendment Law - JOUR-UA 9502 - 4 points
This course is an introduction to how American constitutional law affects journalists and why that matters. It’s also a course about journalistic ethics and how such professional notions as fairness, objectivity, responsibility, and credibility intersect with law – and how they don’t. Other journalism coursework is about how journalists do things – how to report, write, edit; this course will often be about how they avoid problems.
We will cover the law of the First Amendment, the values our system places on free expression, the imprecision of legal principles and the problem this poses for journalists (and their lawyers), the changing nature of journalism and the changing nature of law in the digital age. This is not a law course as such, but a survey of the protections and restrictions that the legal system places on journalists. And we will be mindful that legal constraints alone do not govern how a good journalist behaves. Careful and honorable and valuable journalism comes not only from mere compliance with civil and criminal requirements, but attention to ethical principles that transcend law or are outside its boundaries.
Topics: Black Lives Writing Washington, DC - SCA-UA 9280 or MCC-UE 9122 - 4 points
This course analyzes writing from 1845 to the present, surveying African-American history and literature beginning with the writings of Frederick Douglass and the Harlem Renaissance writers that originate from Washington, DC’s Howard University (Zora Hurston and Alain Locke). From this historical foundation, the course will move to examine issues of race and caste from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoire Between the World and Me, a text that focuses on the death of Coates’ Howard classmate at the hands of police. In addition to the selected texts, the course will use the location of Washington, DC as a resource, visiting sites related to course content, including the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Howard University, the National Museum of African-American Culture and History and the Martin Luther King Memorial Site.
American Constitution - POL-UA 9330 or HIST-UA 9330 - 4 points
This course provides a general theoretical survey of the American Constitution, excepting its guarantee of individual rights, such as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The U.S. Constitution has endured for over two centuries as a touchstone for defining the U.S. as a sociocultural, economic, and political unit. As a textual and ideational construct, the Constitution continues to profoundly impact the fabric of American identity, political culture, and the socioeconomic actuality of those that reside under the (aegis of the) Constitution.
Private Influence in Public Policy - POL-UA 9341 - 4 points
Topics: analysis of mechanisms of influence (selection of sympathetic incumbents, the provision of incentives for public officials, and the provision of information); objects of influence (voter choices, legislative behavior, bureaucratic decisions); collective action; and organizational maintenance.
Sample Syllabus - Coming Soon
Politics of the Near and Middle East - POL-UA 9540- 4 points
The "Arab Spring" unleashed a new dynamic across the Middle East - one in which Arab public opinion has emerged as a factor requiring the attention of political leadership. This is true not only for Arab governments, but for decision-makers and analysts in the West.
The goal of this course will be to examine the role public opinion is playing in shaping on-going developments in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, the relationships between several Arab states and Iran and Turkey, and efforts to achieve a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We will explore the use of up-to-date polling in all these countries to better understand how Arabs: see themselves, view their governments, prioritize their political concerns, and get and use information. We will also examine the misconceptions about Arabs that have long shaped policies that the West has adopted toward the Arab World - leading to the deep divide that defines our current relationship with that region.
Politics of the Near and Middle East - Sample syllabus (PDF)
Cognition - PSYCH-UA 9029 - 4 points
Prerequisite for NYU Students: PSYCH-UA 1/Introduction to Psychology
This course provides a detailed introduction to the major topics in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, including perception, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, and decision making. The course will discuss cutting-edge developments from research using behavioural, neuroimaging, and clinical methods. The class will involve lectures, student presentations, discussion, video material to accompany lectures, and occasional example class experiments. The course also has a practical component, for which students work in small groups and conduct an empirical study, which they write up in a research report.
Cognition - Sample Syllabus
The Politics of Public Policy - UPADM-GP 9101 - 4 points
Course description and syllabus will be based on the course below. Exact description and syllabus will differ slightly.
This course will provide a broad and dynamic introduction of the American political system and public policy. The course will 1) investigate the dynamics, ideas, values, and traditions that support American politics and the policy process 2) examine the actions of citizens and voters that make that influence public policy 3) study the institutions and actors that comprise the American political system, particularly, the three major branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) and the fourth estate (the media) and how policy and constitutional tensions involve political and moral choices (4) explore the critical role played by political communications (i.e. language, strategy, research, social media, digital tech) throughout our political and policy process. The course will place critical emphasis on the “DC advantage”, leveraging our location in the nation’s capital by studying our topics through the unique lens of proximity and applied practice. While this class will study various theoretical academic issues, it will also attend closely to how these theories play out in practice. Students will be challenged to think critically and to execute, at times, real-world examples relevant to the policy and political process. The ultimate goal of the course is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the American political system and overview of public policy in a constitutional democracy that includes a robust theoretical and practical foundation.
The Meaning of Leadership - UPADM-GP 9221 - 4 points
This course is only open to students accepted into the Global Leadership Program
The Meaning of Leadership is a multi-disciplinary, experiential course that explores the nature of leadership in our 21st century global society and the capacities required to contribute effectively. For too long, we’ve imagined leadership as belonging to a select few. In every sector, we’ve focused our support and attention on individual leaders, and yet, the rapid transformation of our workplaces and communities requires a new and more expansive approach. Whether it’s addressing issues like climate change and income inequality or generating breakthrough innovations in science and technology, tackling today’s challenges requires capable and responsive leaders, as well as broadly distributed leadership that is ethical, inclusive and collaborative. The purpose of this course is to expose you to the trends, both practical and theoretical, that are driving this shift and to prepare you to more effectively exercise leadership in your own life and meaningfully contribute to work on complex challenges across a variety of sectors.
This course will be the academic component of your internship or other experiential learning engagement. You will analyze contemporary leadership frameworks and develop your perspective on what it means for leadership to be ethical, inclusive, and collaborative. You will use the seminar to reflect critically and analytically on your experience to further your academic and professional goals. You will be asked to evaluate various aspects of your internship or experiential learning site, including but not limited to its mission, approach, policies, leadership culture and the local, regional and international contexts in which it operates. You will also be asked to reflect critically on the roles you take and your application of class learning in your internship or experiential learning placement throughout the semester. Hands-on course activities such as simulations, team projects and peer-to-peer consultancies will support you in developing self-awareness and critical leadership skills. You will be graded on the academic work produced in this course.
Topics: Black Lives Writing Washington, DC - SCA-UA 9280 or MCC-UE 9122 - 4 points
This course analyzes writing from 1845 to the present, surveying African-American history and literature beginning with the writings of Frederick Douglass and the Harlem Renaissance writers that originate from Washington, DC’s Howard University (Zora Hurston and Alain Locke). From this historical foundation, the course will move to examine issues of race and caste from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoire Between the World and Me, a text that focuses on the death of Coates’ Howard classmate at the hands of police. In addition to the selected texts, the course will use the location of Washington, DC as a resource, visiting sites related to course content, including the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Howard University, the National Museum of African-American Culture and History and the Martin Luther King Memorial Site.
Urban Greening Lab: Washington, DC - ENVST-UA 9495 or SCA-UA 9650 or ANTH-UA 9495 - 4 points
This course provides a comprehensive examination of Washington, DC’s urban ecology and approaches to urban planning, while introducing their history, and the correlations between the city’s built structure, urban nature and culture.
Program Requirements
Students admitted to this program must be registered for 12 - 18 credits. The course listed below is required for all students admitted to this program. Additional courses may be selected from the list above.
For more information on program requirements please visit the program webpage: NYU Washington, DC Global Leadership Program.
The Meaning of Leadership - UPADM-GP 9221 - 4 points
This course is only open to students accepted into the Global Leadership Program
The Meaning of Leadership is a multi-disciplinary, experiential course that explores the nature of leadership in our 21st century global society and the capacities required to contribute effectively. For too long, we’ve imagined leadership as belonging to a select few. In every sector, we’ve focused our support and attention on individual leaders, and yet, the rapid transformation of our workplaces and communities requires a new and more expansive approach. Whether it’s addressing issues like climate change and income inequality or generating breakthrough innovations in science and technology, tackling today’s challenges requires capable and responsive leaders, as well as broadly distributed leadership that is ethical, inclusive and collaborative. The purpose of this course is to expose you to the trends, both practical and theoretical, that are driving this shift and to prepare you to more effectively exercise leadership in your own life and meaningfully contribute to work on complex challenges across a variety of sectors.
This course will be the academic component of your internship or other experiential learning engagement. You will analyze contemporary leadership frameworks and develop your perspective on what it means for leadership to be ethical, inclusive, and collaborative. You will use the seminar to reflect critically and analytically on your experience to further your academic and professional goals. You will be asked to evaluate various aspects of your internship or experiential learning site, including but not limited to its mission, approach, policies, leadership culture and the local, regional and international contexts in which it operates. You will also be asked to reflect critically on the roles you take and your application of class learning in your internship or experiential learning placement throughout the semester. Hands-on course activities such as simulations, team projects and peer-to-peer consultancies will support you in developing self-awareness and critical leadership skills. You will be graded on the academic work produced in this course.
Arts and Cultures towards the Crossroads- ACC-UF 9102 - 4 points
This course examines the arts produced within diverse cultural traditions across the globe from the rise of Islam at the beginning of the 7th century to the global empire building of the late17th/early 18th century. The course explores the distinctive conventions and traditions of different media, and the development of cultural traditions from their ancient foundations to the early modern period through successive influences and assimilations, both local and external. Diverse cultural traditions are also considered in relation to one another: by direct comparison of works even in the absence of historical cultural contact; by consideration of mutual interactions, exchanges and contestations; by the assertion of cultural dominance; and by resistance to such assertions.
Arts and Cultures towards the Crossroads - Sample Syllabus
Principles of Macroeconomics - ECI-UF 9101 - 4 points
Priority Registration for LS First-Year students. Students from other schools can register with home school permission if there are seats available.
This is one of two introductory courses dealing with basic economic principles. The course introduces basic concepts of macroeconomic theory. Topics include unemployment; inflation; aggregate demand; income determination and stabilization policies; fiscal and monetary policies; and the Keynesian monetarist debate over stabilization policy. *Economics I and Economics II may meet some of the equivalent course requirements for the College of Arts and Science. Students may take ECI-UF 101 and ECII-UF 102 in any order; neither course is a pre-requisite for the other.
Fieldwork Seminar - FWS-UF 9201 - 2 points
Students in the fieldwork seminar (which requires an associated internship or equivalent) analyze the structure, purpose, and culture of their internship environment in order to develop their ability to test re-formulate abstract concepts in light of actual experience. They may contextualize their internship experience in broader professional, academic, and autobiographical terms while learning to communicate their observations, insights, and reflections as part of a community of learners.
Global Works and Society in a Changing World - GWC-UF 9102 - 4 points
The second semester of Social Foundations spans a thousand years, from the rise of Islam and the reunification of China under the Tang dynasty (in the 7th century C.E.) through the Scientific Revolution and the decline of the Mogul empire in India. This course invites students to consider great ideas that have often helped earlier peoples organize their lives--but which have also set them in conflict, sometimes with other communities, sometimes among themselves. Such ideas have sparked movements for ethical and social reform, for conquest, for the recovery of lost classics, and for religious renewal.
Global Works and Society in a Changing World - Sample Syllabus
Writing as Critical Inquiry - WRCI-UF 9102 - 4 points
In Writing II, students develop their skills in analysis and argumentation by exploring the ways in which the ideas of others can be incorporated into their own writing. Students read and discuss longer, more challenging texts; in their own writing, students are expected to incorporate a broad range of primary and secondary sources to develop and support their increasingly complex ideas. Students are familiarized with a wide variety of possible resources at the library and learn the mechanics and conventions of the academic research essay. The course continues to encourage in-class participation, collaborative learning, and workshop presentations.
Online/Remote-Taught Courses available to Study Away Students
Students may compliment their local course load by enrolling in an online or remote-taught course. Some of NYU's online courses can be found using the Instruction Mode filter in the Albert Course Search. Please keep in mind that you must be enrolled in at least 12 credits of courses at your study away site (remote-taught/online courses do not count towards the 12 credit minimum requirement). Note, online/remote taught courses are not scheduled on the same session as the courses offered by the study away site, add/drop dates and other academic deadlines will vary. Please refer to Albert course notes for more details. Online/remote taught course commitments should not interfere with student attendance in local classes and required program activities (including orientation).