Courses

NOTE: This site is an archive of 2010–2011 programs and policies at Boston University Metropolitan College. If you are looking for current information about Metropolitan College and its programs, please go to our official website: met.

• MET IS 367: Jobs, Wages, and the Economy
  This course introduces fundamental concepts of micro and macro economics within the context of the labor market. In micro economics, we focus on the supply and demand for labor, looking at trends in labor force participation, college attendance, and wage differentials. In macro economics, we focus on the ability of the economy to create enough jobs to maintain full employment. We will also cover current topics related to the functioning of the labor market, including a discussion of income distribution and poverty, and the employment impact of international trade and outsourcing.
• MET IS 370: China, the Emerging Superpower: A Model for Development?
  Online offering. The course will assess whether China will remain a friend or become a foe for the U.S., argue whether China's road to modernization is an apt model for other developing nations, analyze China's past to discover patterns and traditions that still exist, and study the interaction between China and the world community to determine its future role as a world leader. For further information, please call the Office of Distance Education at 617-358-1960.
• MET IS 380: Landscape, Climate, and Humans
  This course will provide students with an introduction to environmental science with a dual focus in physical geography and climatology. Students will learn to interpret major themes in Earth History and human affairs through interactive lessons that include online lectures, outside reading, and extensive online maps, diagrams, and animations. We will discuss the interactions of climate, physical geography, and human activities in the formation of a dynamic, living Earth. The action of weather, humans, and non-human organisms on the Earth's surface will tie the course together as we end with biogeochemistry and a look at the origin of life. (4 credits)
• MET IS 385: Interior and Exterior Landscapes: Understanding Native American Cultures
  The indigenous people of North America have a unique experience of negotiating cultural boundaries, alien ideologies, and inscrutable behaviors that appear in everything from personal interactions to national policy, and their own cultural and religious traditions have survived despite a dominant culture that has sought to both annihilate and romanticize them. This course is about that cultural interaction and offers an opportunity to understand Native American cultures in their own terms through the voices of their people expressing themselves in literature, film, and other cultural productions and to nderstand America from the perspective of the cultures of its original inhabitants.
• MET IS 400: Great Ideas in Western Thought
  This course will complement HU 400 by focusing on the philosophical, scientific, and political concepts that underlie the foundations of modern western history.
• MET IS 401: Communication Skills I
  This undergraduate communication course incorporates writing skills with academic research. Both business and academic writing expectations are covered. This skills-oriented course focuses on the development of oral and written communication techniques, small and large group dynamics, presentations, and negotiations. [4 undergraduate credits ]
• MET IS 402: Communication Skills II
  This undergraduate communication course incorporates presentation skills with academic research. It reviews the writing standards of IS 401 Ex and covers interpersonal and management communications for professionals. Course writing and presentation assignments will be posted in student ePortfolios. This course is set in the context of communications skills for professionals. (4 undergraduate credits)
• MET IS 403: Natural Science in Comtemporary Society
  This course will focus on controversial and critical social, environmental, business, and political issues in the various disciplines of science. The natural sciences will be explored in the context of public policy. [Var cr.]
• MET IS 419: American Traditional Music
  Traditional American music is a dynamic cultural medium that defines identity and community. It is transmitted by long-practiced modes of observation and imitation, and it engages talented musicians who are part of a long-lived cultural continuum. It is based upon a collective understanding of what tradition is, but it is necessarily altered in each generation as new musicians bring their training, insights, talents, and instruments to the process. The result- never entirely harmonious, always uneasy- holds a continuing power to speak to adherents and new listeners alike. It is not merely the tune that us transmitted in the traditional process, but also a portion of the social fabric that bound the tune as it was played in the past. How traditional music has evolved into the current popular American musical forms, and the history of the creation of a hybrid, but distinctively national, music will be explored in lectures, musical examples, and readings from some of the leading scholars of American traditional music.
• MET IS 420: The Moral Self: Psychological, Religious, and Spiritual Perspectives
  This course will examine morality through three related yet different lenses: psychology, religion and spirituality. With war, terrorism, global climate change, geological disruptions, and other threats, humans tend to feel more vulnerable, more insecure, and to seek deeper understandings of themselves and their world. Accordingly, issues such as abortion, capital punishment, and stem-cell research take on new meanings as morality evolves with culture. How do we develop a moral understanding of what is appropriate behavior for ourselves and others around us? Is morality carved in stone or is it subject to change, depending upon life experience, religion, secular and social orientation, and other factors? The goal of this course is not to definitively answer questions but to generate them; not to agree on moral issues, but to facilitate understanding of others views; not to criticize, but to comprehend the strengths and limitations of each paradigm.
• MET IS 421: The Art of Rhetoric in Life and Work
  The art of rhetoric is one of the original liberal arts and is a part of the trivium that includes grammar and logic. Rhetoric is as old as human communication and as diverse as the human imagination. In the twenty-first century, rhetoric has new forms and meanings but retains some of the dynamics of the classical age of Greece and Rome. This course is a study of the art of rhetoric in everyday life and work from both theoretical and practical perspectives with an emphasis on writing and interpretation.
• MET IS 423: The Experience of Forgiveness: Psychological, Sociological and Spiritual Perspectives
  This seminar explores the psycho/social/spiritual dimensions of the individual?s experience of forgiveness. The forgiveness process is investigated through the theoretical work of psychologists such as Carl Jung and Robert Enright and spiritual/political leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Individual narratives by forgivers are considered and analyzed in relation to the frames provided by these researchers and political activists. Through readings, journals and group presentations, students will explore both the beneficial and problematic aspects of forgiving. Students will develop a warranted, personal position on forgiveness and its limitations in personal and social life.
• MET IS 450: Botany without Borders
  Online offering. Introduces students to practical problems in botany with a dual emphasis on plant evolution and plants in human affairs. The course crosses borders in time and geography as we examine the broad sweep of plants and their role on Earth over the past 300 million years. Plant form and function, evolution of seed plants, plant ecology, ethnobotany (human uses of plants), endangered plant communities, and prospects for conserving plant biodiversity are highlighted in this interdisciplinary course designed for undergraduates. While its focus is rigorously scientific, the course incorporates topics in the humanities (for example visual arts), and social sciences (anthropology) to illustrate the close relationship between humans and plants. Fur further information, call the Office of Distance Education at 617-358-1960.
• MET IS 460: Romanticism and Its Off-Shoots: Countering the Enlightenment in Philosophical Literature and the Visual Arts
  This course explores various currents, paradoxes, and extensions of Romanticism, especially as this movement took shape in Europe and America, with a special focus on philosophical literature and the visual arts. We will begin with some central ideas and themes of German Romantic thinkers, exploring how these ideas and themes are also evoked by British and American writers as well as by European and American painters. We will identify and analyze Romantic themes and styles in early German expressionist films, in British gothic fantasy movies, and in American motion pictures about western frontier heroes. In the concluding part of the course, we will study twentieth-century extension or ?offshoots? of Romanticism, such as existentialism, depth-psychology, and the philosophy of nature. (4 cr.)
• MET IS 470: Biblical Archaeology: Methods, Theories, Contexts
  This course is designed to examine important archaeological discoveries relating to the Bible. It will focus on two significant cultural settings: the rise of Judah and Israel 3000 years ago, and questions about the historical Jesus. The course will cover the geography and topography of Palestine and the ancient Near East, and archaeological field methods used in Israel and Palestine. The history of writing and significant manuscript discoveries, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, will also be examined. Throughout the course, students will examine how archaeologists, looters, forgers, journalists, and theologians fight each other for the opportunity to discover, interpret, and sensationalize artifacts for the religious and irreligious alike. As we examine the archaeological artifacts, students will situate them in terms of their interpretation in documentary films, recent book publications, and other modern media.
• MET IS 480: Physics of Motion: Something in the Way it Moves
  Mechanics is the study of the motion of objects and the forces acting on objects. It is hoped that the student will share some of the excitement felt by great scientists such as Galileo and Newton when they discovered many of the principles on which the physics of motion are based. The course assumes that the student has a working knowledge of algebra, but the emphasis will be on a conceptual understanding of physics rather than on advanced mathematics. Many demonstrations and animations will be presented in the course, and the student will become familiar with the physics of many everyday situations. 4 cr
• MET IS 491: Directed Study
  Independent study under faculty guidance. Prior approval of program director required.
• MET IS 492: Directed Study
  Independent study under faculty guidance. Prior approval of program director required.
• MET LF 111: First-Semester French
  For students who have never studied French. Main patterns of grammar, conversation practice, written exercises, and directed compositions. Four hours weekly. Lab required.
• MET LF 112: Second-Semester French
  Conducted in French. Continues the LF 111 basic text: grammar, conversation, composition, and additional readings. Four hours weekly. Lab required.

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