Overview and Learning Goals

Overview

Cities have played a key role throughout history as centers of power, culture, economic wealth, migration, social interactions, and as home of our greatest artistic works, buildings, and infrastructure projects. Incredibly complex and multidimensional, the city has been called humanity’s “greatest invention.” At the same time, the city has also been the locus of our greatest social problems and inequities, including racial discrimination, poverty, homelessness, environmental degradation, and unsustainable forms of urban expansion. Students in the urban studies minor explore the physical, conceptual, spatial, social, cultural, historical, economic, environmental, and political dimensions of the urban realm as they complete the minor, drawing from the principles and methods of the humanities and social sciences.

Learning Goals

Students who complete a minor in urban studies should gain facility with utilizing the principles and methods of the humanities and social sciences to consider the physical, conceptual, spatial, social, cultural, historical, economic, environmental, and political dimensions of the urban realm. 

They will acquire the knowledge and core competencies to: 

• Identify key elements in the development and transformation of cities. 
• Recognize the diversity of urban forms across time and place, and acquire familiarity with cities outside the US. 
• Evaluate and utilize data, sources, and materials (both quantitative and qualitative) on the social, political, economic, and environmental facets of urban life. 
• Interpret literary, artistic, or historical representations of cities and urban life. 

In addition, students will acquire the following skills and abilities through their coursework in the minor to: 

• Critically read and analyze texts. 
• Find and evaluate a range of primary and secondary sources of information and data. 
• Identify effective methodologies for pursuing particular research questions. 
• Craft discipline-appropriate questions, approaches, and arguments. 
• Communicate effectively across disciplines. 
• Synthesize insights from different social science and humanities disciplines. 

Interdisciplinary minor website