20 courses with the subject IDSC, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
IDSC 10002 Civil Discourse in a Troubled Age6
As we listen to people discussing critical issues facing individuals, communities, countries and the planet, what do we see happening? Is communication occurring? Do the sides hear each other and seek to understand another point of view, even if in disagreement? Is the goal truth or the best policy or victory for a side? What skills, approaches, and conditions lead to genuine discussion and productive argument? How can we cultivate these as individuals and communities? This Argument and Inquiry seminar addresses these questions in both theory and practice by allowing students the opportunity to read, view, discuss, and analyze theoretical discussions and case studies drawn from the past and present on a range of controversial topics. Offered: Fall 2025 Liberal Arts Requirements: AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1
The Carleton Undergraduate Bridge Experience is a six-week program designed to review quantitative skills and explore how these quantitative skills are relevant to disciplines ranging from biology and physics to economics and psychology. Topics may include functions (linear, exponential, logarithmic), geometry, trigonometry, and analysis and graphical representation of data sets. Students will work in teams on several activities, including exploring Carleton-specific data sets that can be used to tell a story about the College and collaborating on problems that explore how particular quantitative skills are used in the sciences and social sciences. In addition, students review and practice their quantitative skills through self-paced work. Offered: Summer 2025 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration Faculty: Lin Winton
IDSC 110Thinking with Numbers: Using Math and Data in Context1
This course will enhance students’ quantitative skills and provide opportunities to apply those skills to authentic problems. Topics covered will vary depending on students in the class; possible topics include unit conversions, significant figures and estimation, exponents, logarithms, algebra, geometry, probability, and statistics. We will explore how these skills are relevant in contexts ranging from making personal finance decisions to understanding medical research reports. Offered: First Five Weeks, Fall 2025 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration Tags: CL: 100 level Faculty: Lin Winton
What are the humanities? Come find out in eight class sessions exploring different humanistic fields and disciplines. Each week, a humanities professor will visit our class to discuss their work as well as exciting new trends in their disciplines. We’ll learn how different humanities disciplines think about evidence, make arguments, and conduct research in the service of exploring fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Students will discuss an array of humanistic topics in a low-stakes environment. This course is especially recommended for students interested in exploring the variety of possible majors and minors within the Humanities. Not offered in 2025-26 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration Tags: CL: 100 level
Careers in entrepreneurship naturally connect to a liberal arts education in at least two ways. First, whether for-profit or social, startup ventures arise as solutions to complex problems. By focusing on alternate ways of thinking, the liberal arts prepare students to generate new solutions to problems of all sorts. Second, the work of the entrepreneur transcends disciplinary boundaries. In any given day, the needs of a business may involve the science of product development, political science of regulation, psychology of brand definition, economics of pricing, and more. Through conversations with Carleton alumni and parent entrepreneurs, this class explores the connection between a liberal arts education and work developing startup enterprises. Offered: Second Five Weeks, Fall 2025 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration Tags: CL: 100 level Faculty: Nathan Grawe
IDSC 141Computer Science Program: Computing with Context: Alan Turing, Gender
and Computing This course will address a cluster of topics related to a broad gender-based context for computing. The starting point is Alan Turing himself: a hero for his code-breaking work during the war, Turing was also a gay man chemically castrated by the British government who (likely) died by suicide after enduring that treatment. The course will spiral outward from Turing to include a broader set of topics related to gender and sexuality in computing, ranging from Turing’s era to the present. Specific topics will vary based on the interests of available experts in aspects of gender and computing.
This colloquium is designed to give students participating in the Focusing on Cultivating Scientists program an opportunity to learn and use skills in scientific study, reasoning, and modeling. The topics of this project-based colloquium will vary each term, and allow students to develop competencies in areas relevant to multiple science disciplines. Offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration Tags: CL: 100 level Faculty: Deborah Gross
Student Cohorts any in the selection list FOCUS.02
IDSC 202MMUF Research Seminar2
This seminar develops the skills needed to engage in and communicate advanced research. Each participant will work and present regularly on their ongoing research projects, and participate actively in an ongoing series of workshops and conferences. The seminar will also discuss in depth the nature of academia as institution and culture, and the role of diversity in the production of knowledge and teaching in American higher education. Open only to students with MMUF fellow status. Offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration Tags: CL: 200 level Faculty: Cherlon Ussery
IDSC 238Vaccines: Science, Skeptics, and Stakeholders6
Vaccines are often touted as one of humankind’s greatest biomedical achievements. They have undoubtedly prevented hundreds of millions of deaths from infectious diseases since their discovery. Yet, there remain many obstacles that prevent their wider development and dissemination. Among these are the technological challenges associated with vaccine development, the well-funded anti-vaccination movements that often thrive on and spread misinformation, and economic hurdles that affect the production and equitable distribution of vaccines. Through an interdisciplinary lens that incorporates material from biology, psychology, and economics, this course will allow students to reach an integrated understanding of vaccines. Offered: Spring 2026 Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration Tags: CL: 200 level Faculty: Debby Walser-Kuntz · Ken Abrams
This discussion-based seminar, open to all students, will examine the most common cognitive biases that keep us from making good decisions—and will explore the potential of behavioral science to produce better outcomes in areas ranging from saving the planet from environmental ruin to promoting more gender equality and increasing organ donation. Along the way, we will examine the controversy surrounding the work of two famous behavioral scientists accused of falsifying data on a massive scale and producing impossible-to-replicate results. Together we will wrestle with the question, “Can behavioral science save the world?” Not offered in 2025-26
Human beings are always and everywhere challenged by the question: What should I do to spend my mortal time well? One way to approach this ultimate challenge is to explore some of the great cultural products of our civilization–works that are a delight to read for their wisdom and artfulness. This series of two-credit courses will explore a philosophical dialogue of Plato in the fall, a work from the Bible in the winter, and a pair of plays by Shakespeare in the spring. The course can be repeated for credit throughout the year and in subsequent years. Offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry Tags: CL: 200 level Faculty: Laurence Cooper
Subject
IDSC
Credits (min)
2
Credits (max)
2
Credit unit
Credits
Type
course
Repeatable
can be repeated for credit throughout the year and in subsequent years.
IDSC 258Consensus or Contentious? Controversies in Science Then and Now
Almost every global challenge confronting humankind requires some level of engagement with science and technology. However, finding solutions to our most pressing problems also requires an understanding of how science operates within its social, political, and cultural context. This course will explore the relationship between science and society by examining a series of controversies in science from both the past and the present. We will investigate topics such as biological and social concepts of race, the use of unethically obtained scientific results, the ethics of genomics research, legislation over vaccination mandates, “parachute” science, and climate change denial. Examining the role of science in society will help us understand issues related to the use of evidence, expertise, and the relationship between science and politics. By wrestling with current and historic scientific controversies, we will examine the ways in which scientific disagreements are often as much about values as they are about research methods. Offered: Winter 2026 Credits: 2 Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration Tags: ACE Applied BIOL Elective CL: 200 level HIST Environment and Health Faculty: Antony Adler · Rika Anderson
This course is intended for students who secure an internship that requires course credit as a condition of hiring. Carleton does not grant credit for internships, but in some appropriate circumstances, we grant credit for additional academic work associated with an internship. Although the specific nature of internship experiences will vary, internships are opportunities to apply and extend one's academic skills and interests into work in non-academic settings. This course will involve carefully monitored work experiences in which a student has intentional learning goals which will be assessed through reflective writing and related readings. Offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026 Grading: S/CR/NC
This course explores vexing ethical questions raised in academic civic engagement practice. With structured reflection on students’ varied civic engagement experiences and a group project aligned with the instructor’s work, students will consider questions arising from asymmetries of power, the relationships between scholarship and advocacy, scholarly and community knowledges, empathy with others and a student’s own moral commitments, and practices of civic engagement and community organizing. Offered biennially by rotating faculty, course themes will vary accordingly. The 2023 theme is Indigenous engagement in Minnesota. Not offered in 2025-26 Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies Tags: ACE Applied ACE Theoretical CL: 200 level
This colloquium develops the skills needed to engage in and communicate scientific and mathematical research. Topics will vary each term, but will include searching and reading the primary literature and communicating results orally and via posters. The colloquium will also explore the landscape of academic scientific research and how to negotiate the expectations of being a research group member. Not offered in 2025-26 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration To request permission, click this link and fill out the request form. Please note: the link will open in a new window. Once you have received permission from the instructor, you will be able to return to this page to register for the course. Tags: CL: 200 level
This course requires permission from the instructor.
IDSC 298FOCUS Sophomore Colloquium1
This colloquium is designed for sophomore students participating in the Focusing on Cultivating Scientists program. It will provide an opportunity to participate in STEM-based projects on campus and in the community. The topics of this project-based colloquium will vary each term. Offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration or better during their first year. Tags: ACE Applied CL: 200 level Faculty: Anna Rafferty
Student has completed any of the following course(s): IDSC 198 with a grade of C-
IDSC 40003 Japanese Special Major Integrative Exercise
Integrative Exercise for Japanese Special Majors. Offered: Fall 2025 Grading: S/NC To request permission, click this link and fill out the request form. Please note: the link will open in a new window. Once you have received permission from the instructor, you will be able to return to this page to register for the course. Faculty: Noboru Tomonari
