Learning Goals in the STS Major

The Faculty of the College of STS have approved the following list of Learning Goals for all students undertaking the major in STS:

SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCE: competence beyond the major-track introductory level in a scientific discipline, indicated by students’ performance in appropriate courses in that science.

CORE COMPETENCE IN SCIENCE STUDIES: improved understanding of the sciences and/or medicine as historically developing, socially and culturally situated practices of inquiry and conceptual understanding; that understanding should have both multi-disciplinary breadth, and greater depth within a particular disciplinary area of concentration.

DISCIPLINARY DEPTH: those students whose area of concentration is in a discipline that incorporates the sciences and medicine as objects of inquiry should improve their understanding of how that discipline conceives and approaches the sciences and/or medicine, and how its approach connects to other ways of understanding the sciences and medicine; those students whose area of concentration is fulfilled by a second major in a scientific discipline should improve their understanding of how practices and achievements of that science are historically, culturally and philosophically situated, and how their scientific understanding and their core competence in science studies can be mutually informative.

SCIENTIFIC CONTEXTUALIZATION: improved skills for engaging their scientific understanding in relevant ways with specific issues or concerns of broader social, cultural, political and/or philosophical significance, and for acquiring and assessing relevant technical background for such issues that goes beyond their prior scientific training.

ASSESSING THE STS MAJOR

The College faculty engages in ongoing review of the effectiveness of the major in enabling students to meet the Learning Goals intended for all students, and the student’s own individual goals within the major. Because each student’s course of study in the Program is highly individualized, we rely upon student self-assessment as a crucial input to our review.

All STS majors are required to submit a statement of goals before meeting with their major advisor to approve a schedule plan in pre-registration for the first time after they declare the major. Schedule plans will not be approved by your advisor until the Statement of Goals has been submitted and discussed. Students are then permitted, but not required, to provide updated versions of this statement if they find it useful to take notice of significant changes in their plans for the major.

All STS majors are encouraged (but not required) to keep electronic copies of your principal assignments along with their own copy of their Statement of Goals. Having ready access to your work will be useful later in thinking back over what you have accomplished during your time in the major, and in preparing resumes after graduation.

All STS majors are required to submit a self-evaluation of what they have accomplished in the major, with reference to their own initial statement of goals, the learning goals identified by the faculty, and other considerations that they find relevant for understanding what they have accomplished in the program. Students are encouraged to use this exercise as a way of characterizing their accomplishments in a form that might be informative to future employers, graduate programs, and vocations.