Advising for First-Year Students

We encourage students to take courses with us during their first year, including departmental courses, General Education courses, and Freshman Seminars. History of Science 100 is a required course for History and Science concentrators, and is offered only in the fall semester; your first semester is an ideal time to take it! The list below shows a number of courses to consider taking during AY 2025-2026:

Fall 2025:

  • History of Science 100. Knowing the World: An Introduction to the History of Science (Alex Csiszar)
  • History of Science 1110. Galileo: Discovery, Faith, Ego, and the Making of Scientific Controversy (Hannah Marcus)
  • History of Science 1441. Foreign Bodies: On Health and Migration (Eram Alam)
  • History of Science 1445. Medicine and Health in America (Eram Alam)
  • History of Science 1462. Therapeutic Histories: Global Encounters between Healing Systems (Rijul Kochhar)
  • History of Science 1490. The History and Culture of Stigma (Allan Brandt)
  • History of Science 1630/History 187. Writing Histories of Climate Change (Victor Seow/Emma Rothschild)
  • History of Science 1735. Being Human since 1945 (Simon Torracinta)
  • History of Science 1740. The Psychology of War (Leslie-William Robinson)
  • History of Science 1771. Science and the Quest for Consciousness (Anne Harrington)
  • History of Science 1780. Psychopathologies of Modern Life (Liz Lunbeck)
  • History of Science 1850. Technologies of Social Reform (Marc Aidinoff)
  • East Asian Studies 170. Medicine and the Self in China and in the West (Shigehisa Kuriyama)
  • General Education 1089. The Border: Race, Politics, and Health in Modern Mexico (Gabriela Soto Laveaga)
  • General Education 1174. Life and Death in the Anthropocene (Naomi Oreskes)
  • General Education 1179. Pychotherapy and the Modern Self (Elizabeth Lunbeck)

  • First Year Seminar 58D. Against Tech? (Eric Gurevitch)

     

Spring 2026 courses will be posted in the fall. Here is a sample of Spring 2025 courses.

Spring 2025:

  • History of Science 1350: Modern Life Science: From Pasteur to CRISPR (Rijul Kochhar)
  • History of Science 1456. Race and Public Health Crises: From TB to AIDS to COVID-19 (Evelynn Hammonds and george aumoithe)
  • History of Science 1684. Race, War, and Medicine (Leslie-William Robinson)
  • History of Science 1770. Broken Brains: A Patient-Centered History (Anne Harrington)
  • History of Science 1825. Open Minds, Wired Worlds: Computers and Cyberculture (Matthew Hersch)
  • History of Science 1861. From Steam Engines to Silicon Valley: Science and Capitalism in History (Simon Torracinta)
  • History of Science 1955. Science in Popular Culture (Erik Baker)
  • Classical Studies 165. Ancient Medicine (Mark Schiefsky)

We are happy to talk to individual first year students about our program, but one of the best ways to get to know us is to attend one of our Departmental advising Open Houses or to come to one of our other community events -- including an annual alumni career panel. Just write to Allie Belser to be put on a mailing list for announcements.