Category Archives: Liberal Arts & Sciences – Electives
All Liberal Arts Elective Courses: Quantitative Reasoning, Physical Science OR Life Science, Societies & the Social Sciences, Expressive Culture, General Liberal Arts Electives
Prerequisite: V22.0201 and V22.0310. There are many cognitive tasks that people can do easily and almost unconsciously but that have proven extremely difficult to program on a computer. Artificial intelligence is the problem of developing computer systems that can carry out these tasks. We will focus on three central areas in AI: representation and reasoning, machine learning, and natural language processing.
The use and design of data structures, which organize information in computer memory. Stacks, queues, linked lists, binary trees: how to implement them in a high level language, how to analyze their effect on algorithm efficiency, and how to modify them. Programming assignments.
This course covers the principles and design of operating systems. Topics include process scheduling and synchronization, deadlocks, memory management including virtual memory, input-output and file systems. Programming assignments.
Prerequisites: Data Structures (CSCI-UA 102); Discrete Mathematics (MATH-UA 120); and either Calculus I (MATH-UA 121) OR Math for Economics I (MATH-UA 211). An introduction to the study of algorithms. Two main themes are presented: designing appropriate data structures, and analyzing the efficiency of the algorithms which use them. Algorithms for basic problems are studied. These include sorting, searching, graph algorithms and maintaining dynamic data structures. Homework assignments, not necessarily involving programming.
This course covers the internal structure of computers, machine (assembly) language programming, and the use of pointers in high-level languages. Topics include the logical design of computers, computer architecture, the internal representation of data, instruction sets, and addressing logic, as well as pointers, structures, and other features of high-level languages that relate to assembly language. Programming assignments will be both in assembly language and other languages.
Students that have successfully completed CSCI-UA 467 Applied Internet Technology are not eligible to take CSCI-UA 61 Web Development and Programming. This course will provide a practical approach to web technologies and programming. Students will build interactive, secure and powerful web programs. This course will cover client and server side technologies for the web.
The use and design of data structures, which organize information in computer memory. Stacks, queues, linked lists, binary trees: how to implement them in a high level language, how to analyze their effect on algorithm efficiency, and how to modify them. Programming assignments.
Students that have successfully completed CSCI-UA 479 Data Management and Analysis are not eligible to take CSCI-UA 60 Database Design and Implementation. Introduces principles and applications of database design and working with data. Students use python as they prepare, analyze and work with data; SQL to study the principles and implementations of relational databases; and are introduced to other database paradigms such as NoSQL. Students apply these principles to computer systems in general and in their respective fields of interest.
Prerequisite: Three years of high school mathematics or equivalent. No prior computing experience is assumed. Students with computing experience should consult with the computer science department before registering. Offered every semester. 4 points. This course introduces students to both the practice of web design and the basic principles of computer science. The practice component of the course covers not only web design but also current graphics and software tools. The principles section includes an overview of hardware and software, the history of computers, and a discussion of the impact of computers and the internet.
Data Science for Everyone is a foundational course that prepares students to participate in the data-driven world that we are all experiencing. It develops programming skills in Python so that students can write programs to summarize and compare real-world datasets. Building on these data analysis skills, students will learn how draw conclusions and make predictions about the data. Students will also explore related ethical, legal, and privacy issues.
Introduction to Data Science offers the fundamental principles and techniques of data science. Students will develop a toolkit to examine real world examples and cases to place data science techniques in context, to develop data-analytic thinking, and to illustrate that proper application is as much an art as it is a science. In addition, students will gain hands-on experience with the Python programming language and its associated data analysis libraries. Students will also consider ethical implications surrounding privacy, data sharing, and algorithmic decision making for a given data science solution.
Understanding Story is a class composed of lectures, discussions, screenings, readings, critical and creative writing, group critiques and presentations. The course is designed to expose the student to the fundamental principles of storytelling across a spectrum of mediums, including the written story, playwriting, film, poetry, dance, games, photography, fine art and music. How do all these different art forms tell stories? How can the student apply what is learned to their own creative work? History and theory of story will be studied and used to inspire personal and creative work in order to better understand how story can most successfully be expressed in different mediums and reach its audience.
This class is an overview of the field of video games that approaches them from several theoretical and critical perspectives. No special theoretical background or prior training is needed to take the course, but to have had a broad practical experience with and basic knowledge of games is a distinct advantage. Also, an interest in theoretical and analytical issues will help. You are expected to actively participate in the lectures, which are dialogic in form, with ample room for discussion. The course will prepare the student to: – Understand and discuss games from a theoretical perspective – what are the components of a game? – Apply new theories and evaluate them critically. – Assess and discuss game concepts and the use of games in various contexts. – Analyze games, and understand and apply a range of analytical methods.
An exploration of television as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of television as both a cultural product and industry.
Introduces students to the study of media, culture, and communication. The course surveys models, theories, and analytical perspectives that form the basis of study in the major. Topics include dialogue, discourse, mass and interpersonal communication, political economy, language, subject-formation, critical theory, experience, and reception. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent for Societies and the Social Sciences.
This course offers students a foundational understanding of the technological building blocks that make up digital media & culture, & of the ways they come together to shape myriad facets of life. Students will acquire a working knowledge of the key concepts behind coding, & survey the contours of digital media architecture, familiarizing themselves with algorithms, databases, hardware, & similar key components. These technological frameworks will be examined as the basic grammar of digital media & related to theories of identity, privacy, policy, & other pertinent themes.
This course offers students the opportunity to engage with theories of communication & culture through the context of consumption & contemporary consumer society. Our focus will be on the role of commodities & consumer practices in everyday life & in culture at large. We will give particular attention to consumption’s role in the construction of social & cultural identities. Students will consider critical responses to consumer culture, including the resistance & refusal of consumption as well as the attempted mobilization of consumption toward social change.
Departing from the premise that money and finance are not simply a system but also a culture, this class considers how money, finance, and economics are shaped in part through media representations. We examine historical ways of thinking about money, the centrality of financial markets in 20th-21st century globalization, and the examination of financial systems in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. Students explore the role of money media in shaping attitudes toward consumerism, financial decisions, and finance systems.
This course investigates the mediation of music & music-like sounds in both private & public life. Commercial venues, from restaurants to rest rooms, pipe Muzakl into its spaces; radios broadcast more music than any other content today; soundtracks imprint the texture of signifying associations for television shows & films; we carry personal playlists on mobile music players; & musical media & technological, ideological & metaphysical dimension; as well as the relation of music to mass media (radio, television, the internet) & the film and music industries.
The course on “Media, Activism & Democracy” aims at, first, introducing students to the complex and fascinating topic of civil society activism; second, at illustrating them the linkages between activism and media; third, at showing them the impact of civil society’s advocacy on contemporary political systems. In a nutshell, the course aims at providing students with a closer understanding of the civil society activism-media-politics conundrums at the national and global levels.
A veritable buzzword globalization refers to several newly emerged trends. To name the three most visible ones these are the economy, culture and politics. Media do not only describe and interpret globalization but also are its important part. A study of globalization is inherently diverse and eclectic. So is this course. Students will read, watch, analyze and discuss. In class discussions and writings they are expected to engage questions connected to globalization, culture and the media. Through a series of lectures and discussions the course explores how the process of globalization transforms the media and examines the impact of new technologies on global communications. Emphasizing the transnational context of media and culture the course approaches global media and cultural production from a wide range of theoretical frameworks relevant to contemporary condition.
This course examines the emergence of the Internet as a commercial business. It pays particular attention to the various business models and practices employed in media-related enterprises, tracing their development from the late 1990s to the most recent strategies and trends. Case studies include the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), portals, search engines, early game platforms, the Internet presence of traditional media organizations, and social network platforms.
This course is an analysis of changing trends in marketing ranging from corporate social responsibility to guerrilla and viral marketing. Discussion of theoretical concepts are applied through fieldwork and project-based learning. Guest lectures on emerging topics are featured.
This course examines fashion as a form of communication and culture. We examine how fashion makes meaning and how it has been valued through history, popular culture and media institutions, focusing on the relationship between fashion, visual self-presentation, and power. The course situated fashion both in terms of its production and consumption, addressing its role in identity and body politics (gender, race, sexuality, class), art and status, nationhood and the global economy, celebrity and Hollywood culture, youth cultures and subversive practices.
An overview of the history and cultures of print. Examines typography communication and the persuasive power of print. Topics include print ’revolution’ in early modern Europe, printedness and the public sphere, as well as contemporary relationships between print and digital media. How are digital media making it possible to see new things about print? What can e-books tell us about books?
This course examines theories, technologies, and practices of listening in the modern world. How has our experience of sound changed as we move from the piano to the personal computer, from the phonoautograph to the mp3? How have political, commercial, and cultural forces shaped what we are able to listen to, and how we listen to it? Finally, how have performers, physiologists, and philosophers worked to understand this radical transformation of the senses?
This course examines the proposition that contemporary war should be understood as media. War has become mediatized and media has been militarized. This course treats war and political violence as communicative acts and technologies and focuses on how they shape our understanding and experience of landscape, vision, body, time and memory.
Explores the various political and philosophical debates within western Marxism. Pays particular attention to the influence of the cultural turn in twentieth century Marxist thought on feminism, postcolonialism, and theories of mediation. Themes include: the commodity, alienation and reification, surplus value, culture, ideology, hegemony and subjectivity.
An inquiry into the ways that technology — mechanical, electronic, analog, and digital — shapes and is shaped by cultural, political, and social values. Students become acquainted with key concepts and approaches to understanding the interplay of technology and society (e.g. technological determinism, social construction of technology, actor networks, affordances) and how these have been applied to such cases as the clock, the automobile, the assembly line, household technology, the telephone, and more recent communication technology.
This course examines the relationship between mediated forms of communications and the formation of identities, both individual and social. Attention paid to the way mediated forms of communication represent different social and cultural groupings, with a particular emphasis on gender, race, ethnicity, class and nationality.
This course examines the broad range of activities associated with the globalization of media production, distribution, and reception. Issues include: the relationship between local and national identities and the emergence of a ’global culture’ and the impact of technological innovations on the media themselves and their use and reception in a variety of settings.
The course approaches video games through the lens of political economy. This means examining games foremost as commodities, transactional goods through which various modes of economic life occur. This course is designed to introduce students to the structure and economics of the game industry since its emergence in the 1970s, particularly across the United States, China, and Japan. Special attention is brought to the dramatic industry changes catalyzed by digital distribution, mobile gaming, live streaming, and other contemporary developments.
An exploration of film as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of film as both a cultural product and industry.
An exploration of television as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of television as both a cultural product and industry.
A site to help IMA NY students find equivalent courses
For students joining IMA in Fall 2022 and beyond, our new program structure affects the categorization of courses on this site.
Classes listed in the “IMA Major Electives” categories refer to the old IMA program structure. If you’re under the new IMA program structure, these courses count as general IMA Electives for you. Your program structure is noted on your academic advising spreadsheet.
Students on the new program structure can search the Interchange for courses. If you’re looking for “IMA Major Distribution” courses, you'll find them listed here: