In Freshman Seminar I, students will take a cross-cultural perspective on human existence in the context of the many worlds we all occupy: natural, social and existential. Students will explore human existence in the context of post-Darwinian understandings of what it means to be a human animal. Through exploring the work of both Confucian philosophers and evolutionary theories of ethics, they will ask what it means to be a social animal. And they will explore the rich traditions of existentialism to explore what it means to find ourselves here, evolved beings living in society with each other, conscious of our limitations, our freedom and our death. This Seminar I course will give students the ability to move between radically different frameworks of understanding to derive rich and complex insights into the human experience.

English Composition I focuses on the foundation skills of university-level writing. The course will take students through all the steps of the expository writing process, from pre-writing to revising and proofreading. Students will work through a series of expository essays, including narratives and descriptive pieces. The course will support them in acquiring appropriate critical reading skills, as well as following conventions of standard English in writing. Students will also be introduced to selecting, using, and correctly referencing sources.

This course is an introduction to differential calculus and is designed to meet the needs of Statistics and Data Science students. Topics will cover functions, limits, derivatives and applications. Basic concept of integration is also included.

This course provides an introduction to the quantitative tools for monitoring, analyzing data, and evaluating data. Through practical and real-world applications, students learn statistical methods that can be used in quantitative analysis of real-world problems. This course focuses both on concepts underlying statistical methods as well as problem-solving through the use of STATA, a popular statistical software package.

This course will introduce you to enduring and emergent issues in the theory of human rights. It will situate human rights within the history of colonialism, which undergirds the ongoing debates surrounding universalism and cultural relativism, individual rights and collective rights, and reconciliation after genocide,  examine human rights case studies from South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America, and explore a variety of emerging approaches to human rights.

In Freshman Seminar II, students will explore questions about human knowledge and understanding. This seminar course will build on Freshman Seminar I, to ask challenging questions about our knowledge of ourselves, each other and the world we inhabit. It will equip students to engage more deeply with questions of knowledge, its uses and its misuses. And it will develop student’s critical awareness of different ways of approaching the question of what it means to know.

English Composition II focuses on the process of argumentative writing, from initial development through drafting and revising to the final product. This course focuses on students' ability to use sources to form strong arguments in academic writing. In this course, students will design their own arguments using sources to write and present their ideas effectively.

This course is a continuation of Calculus I. The topics cover integration and its applications, series and sequences.

Reading at its best involves actively interpreting, reflecting, discussing, and adapting big ideas to the world in which we live. This critical analysis is key to intellectual growth. This in-depth reading module selects one text that will be carefully read, discussed, and analysed over a 16 week period. The target text is Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom. This highly acclaimed book, written by a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics, has not only changed the way international development projects are conceived, designed, and implemented, it has also reframed human rights debates to include human capabilities and functionings.

This course is to provide students with a basic but critical understanding of major changes and developments throughout history from a design perspective, primarily architectural perspective. Discussion topics will include changes within architecture itself or other times by external forces. The readings and lectures investigate the interrelationship of architecture, design and broader cultural, social and political context. The course explores some of the significant moments of change in architecture that results from economic, technological, or institutional change in nature.

In Sophomore Seminar 1, we will explore how difference is socially and historically constructed, what it can mean to us, and how it can act on us. We will also ask critical questions on what we already know about differences among humans in today’s world. The Seminar will start with exploring the concept of “the Other”, which is one aspect of difference. We will look into different views on “the Other” from different parts of the world.

Smartphones are essential for our daily activities. This course provides an overview of scientific instrumentation and ideas on how a smartphone can be used in a science laboratory. The hands-on activities are designed to be done by every student using equipment that they already have at their homes. Each topic will begin with theory and then connect that theory to practice.

This course is an introduction to programming with Python for students without any previous programming experience. Throughout the class, we will cover different data types, writing functions, using packages like Numpy and Python and creating data visualizations. We will also use version control with Git.

This course is an introduction to Microeconomics from a very broad perspective. Microeconomics is the science of how people use resources. A large part is about decision making: Which is the best route for going to school, and should I walk or take the bus? Can I get a dog as a pet, should I buy vegetables in the market in the morning or in the afternoon, and why are the prices different in different cities? This course is a foundation course which is needed in order to follow higher level courses in the Economics module.

This course is an introduction to programming with Python for students without any previous programming experience. Throughout the class, we will cover different data types, writing functions, using packages like Numpy and Python and creating data visualizations. We will also use version control with Git.

Sophomore Seminar II introduces students to urgent contemporary questions about our shared human future. Drawing on both literature and theory, students will be challenged to imagine and reimagine the possibilities for our collective and individual futures. The seminar will begin by looking at notions of utopia and dystopia, placing these in the context of the present: in particular in the social and economic frameworks of capitalism. Students will explore the ways in which imagining the future throws light on our present concerns and dilemmas.

This course is an introductory course for social studies. We will cover what social inquiry is and why it is important. During this course we will look at different methods of knowing and making sense of the world. We will focus on typical questions that are asked in social science and specific approaches to answer these questions. You will learn the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to answering questions in the field of social science, for instance through a in-depth study on climate change. Selected readings from different social science disciplines will be used as an interdisciplinary approach to addressing questions in this field.

This course is designed for non-science majors. The course will explore the physical concepts that explain how information is transmitted, retrieved and stored. By studying basic concepts of waves, light and atoms, the topics will be covered ranging from radio to wireless network to fiber optics.

The course is structured in two parts: Data Communication and Data Ethics. Data Communication is the last and the most visible step in the data pipeline. It is important to apply ethical thinking there but also holistically in the whole pipeline.

This course is an introduction to the techniques of linear algebra. Topics covered include, systems of linear equations, Gaussian elimination, vectors in Rn, matrices, inverses, determinants, eigenvalues and vector geometry.

This course is an overview over important algorithmic concepts and how efficient algorithms depend on the design of suitable data structures.

This course is an introduction to Machine Learning. Requirements for this class are completion of basic Mathematics and Statistics modules, as well as the Introduction to Python. Throughout the class, we will cover the data preprocessing process as well as different types of machine learning models from the realms of supervised and unsupervised learning together with model evaluation metrics.

This course will introduce students with higher level statistical programming using R, data visualization with base graphics and ggplot2, reproducible reports with Markdown, and developing dashboards with Shiny.

Travel, commerce, religious devotion, friendships, political alliances, even survival in classical western civilization depended on a universal code of conduct referred to as xenia by the ancient Greeks. Very little could be done outside of one’s own kinship group or small community without a guarantee that one would be treated well as a stranger. This tacit pact of guest-friendship remains extremely relevant in contemporary, globalized society, especially for Myanmar students as they journey away from home, through the gateway of the campus’ halls and into the wider world. In addition to enhancing core skills of analysis, debate, writing, critical reading and listening, students will work on seven discrete units, treating exemplary artistic works from the Greco-Roman tradition that illustrate and complicate this theme of hospitality, its functions and its limits, both historically and conceptually.

This course is an overview over important algorithmic concepts and how efficient algorithms depend on the design of suitable data structures.

The course will introduce students to a basic introduction to modern time series analysis. The course will cover topics such as time series regression and exploratory data analysis, Fourier analysis, ARMA/ARIMA models, model identification/estimation/linear operators, spectral estimation, and state space models. The analyses will be performed using a freely available package ​astsa​. Both R and RStudio will be required for this class.

Through this course, students will explore the social innovation field and paths of becoming a social impact leader; foster an innovative mindset and learn innovation tools, including design-thinking and systems thinking; reflect on and develop their leadership skills, and deepen their understanding of civic engagement and community development to bring positive social change. Students will be encouraged to connect the themes of this course to social issues that they care about in their communities. At the end of the course, students will reflect on their learning and share actions that they can take to make positive social change.

This course is to provide students with a basic understanding of sustainable design practices in the built environment. Through case-studies, students will learn that sustainable design is a necessity in reducing our carbon footprints, tackling global climate change, and achieving environmental justice. The course will not only focus on quantitative requirements of science-led innovative strategies but also on qualitative design thinking to achieve inclusive and equitable society.

Senior Capstone is a year-long project-based/research-based course that all senior students have to take and complete. Senior Capstone I is taken in the first semester of their senior year and Capstone II is taken in the second semester of their senior year. Senior Capstone projects are always associated with student’s declared majors.

This course covers a number of more advanced Machine Learning algorithms and their applications. Requirements for this class are completion of basic Mathematics and Statistics modules, as well as the Introduction to Python and the Introduction to Machine Learning. Throughout the class, we will cover a range of supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning algorithms as well as directly apply them to relevant data. We will also cover hyperparameter tuning as well as model evaluation.

This course introduces students to the literary, architectural, cinematic, and visual arts of east, southeast, and south asia, and investigates how different historical, generic, and technological perspectives produce new knowledge for the modern world.  Special attention is paid to the politics of shifting relations between practices and objects deemed traditional and modern as asian cultures reaffirm their uniqueness and assert sovereignty in a modern world system.

This course will explore “self-cultivation”: the question of how we can become the best version of ourselves. We will read texts about self-cultivation by philosophers from different places and historical periods, including ancient Greece, China, India, and Germany. We will discuss whether these philosophers saw self-cultivation as the same for everyone, or whether they thought it should be different for men and women. We will consider how these ideas may influence our lives and the way we see ourselves today.

Senior Capstone is a year-long project-based/research-based course that all senior students have to take and complete. Senior Capstone I is taken in the first semester of their senior year and Capstone II is taken in the second semester of their senior year. Senior Capstone projects are always associated with student’s declared majors.

This course gives an overview over different text mining algorithms and related disciplines such as web scraping. Requirements for this class are completion of basic Mathematics and Statistics modules, as well as the Introduction to Python and Introduction to Machine Learning. Throughout the class, we will cover the specifics of text data and learn how to pre-process it to make it usable in algorithms. We will cover two different techniques for gathering text data, namely web scraping and working with APIs. And we will see some algorithms for Natural Language Processing.

In this course we will confront some of the major ethical issues that arise in our society—the treatment of animals (vegetarianism, experimentation), the beginning of life (abortion, in vitro, PGD testing), the ethics of war (when to go, how to wage), the ethics of politics (what ought our representatives do), the end of life (right to die, suicide, euthanasia), fear of death, the ethics of food, and the environment. In Ethics, we seek not simply opinions or personal positions on these contentious problems, but hope to make a broader claim about right and wrong.

Development projects can be incredibly varied. Perhaps a community is responding to a natural disaster; perhaps they want to build new infrastructure (a road, school, access to water, etc.); or perhaps they would like to deliver health care to at-risk community members, or create cooperative gardens, or strengthen community capacities with workshops, and so on. All of these projects and their activities share something in common—they all have a goal. A common method used by INGOs, NGOs, and CBOs for their humanitarian initiatives is results-based management (RBM). This course provides a practical introduction to key tools used in RBM, such as, for example: problem and objective trees, stakeholder mapping, SWOC tables, theory of change, logical framework, Gantt charts, monitoring and evaluation, and basic budgeting. RBM and its associated tools are common practice in the humanitarian sector. This course will help prepare students for this sector. It will also enable students to undertake their own development projects on their own initiative.