For the first time in its 25-year history, the CAS Core Curriculum has undergone a general revision of its program with the help of BU\u2019s Interdisciplinary Course Development Grant. The department began to introduce new natural science and social science curricula last spring, and will offer the entire sequence in the\u00a02016\/17 academic year.<\/p>\n
Through four new courses, students can now explore the origins of the universe, examine the nature of religion and its place in society, and better understand the modern world. These new classes<\/a>\u00a0replace Core<\/a>\u2019s former natural and social science courses.<\/p>\n Core\u2019s updated curriculum is an opportunity for students to think outside the box and put together the idea of what it means to be “human” in biology, neuroscience, the social sciences, philosophy, and religion. They will have the chance to connect how different cultures and time periods saw the world and consider where our way of seeing the world fits in.<\/p>\n The course \u201cCC 212: Science and the Modern World,\u201d for example, studies the paradigm-shifting scientific theories that forced the twentieth-century into a new understanding of our relation to the physical world, including Quantum Theory and Relativity. The class runs parallel to another new course, “CC 202: From Enlightenment to Modernity,” which studies the major works of the humanities and the radical affect of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n \u201cThe notion that the world is essentially a \u2018solved problem\u2019 couldn\u2019t be further from reality,\u201d says Binyomin Abrams, senior lecturer in chemistry, Metcalf Prize winner, and professor of CC 212. \u201cOne of our biggest hopes is that \u2018Science and the Modern World\u2019 will open students up to see the world much how we [professors] do: as a weird, confusing, and amazing place.\u201d<\/p>\n