First-Year International Courses

Dr. Mark Minster (Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts) Spring Quarter 2023 -- Travel to Belgium and the Netherlands during Spring Break

This is a course about the future that we need right now. How is it being imagined? How is it being built?

We know humans need food, water, and energy, for example. But growing food is energy- and water-intensive. It takes lots of energy to clean water and lots of water to generate energy. What kinds of infrastructure and agriculture will we need in order to sustain the well-being of 10 billion people, without requiring even more water and energy?

What kinds of changes will we need to make? Leading the way in imagining and building a sustainable future are countries like Belgium and the Netherlands. Over Spring Break 2023 we will visit historic windmills and state-of-the-art wind-farms, world-class farms and greenhouses. We will meet scientists, engineers, activists, and experts from climate and eco-power cooperatives and car-sharing initiatives. We will tour climate resiliency infrastructure from medieval dikes and canals to newly restored wetlands. And of course we will build in plenty of time for cultural experiences: museums, breweries, chocolatiers, and marketplaces.

Before the trip, we will learn about the fundamentals of sustainability in historical, social, scientific, and engineering contexts. We will see firsthand how these concepts are applied in Belgium and the Netherlands. After the trip, we will examine the costs and benefits of what we have experienced in our travels, proposing strategies to manage these challenges. Focusing on the food-water-energy nexus, we will think about how they can be redesigned to complement each other.

For more info, email Dr. Minster >>

Spring Quarter 2023: CHEM270 - CHEMISTRY OF FOOD AND DRINK IN JAPAN - Travel to Japan in Summer

Have you ever wondered exactly what tofu or miso is? Or maybe you’ve wondered how sake differs from other liquors. In this course taught by Professors Fumie Sunahori and Luanne Tilstra, you will—in Spring quarter—learn some of the fundamental chemistry behind food and drink and then explore mysteries of Japanese food, drink, and cooking methods developed in Japan.

We will complete with two-week trip to Japan—right after Commencement—in Tokyo, Kanazawa, Kyoto, and Hiroshima led by a native instructor, offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to immerse themselves in a unique, foreign environment to learn history and culture in Japan where both traditional practices and latest technologies coexist. As a part of the course, you will participate field trips to sake and miso factory as well as traditional Japanese sweet cooking class.

SUMMER 2023: MA381 - PROBABILITY IN PARIS

Probability in Paris will have you taking Rose’s MA381 with Associate Professor of Mathematics Wayne Tarrant in France for four weeks at the beginning of summer 2023.  

With this class we will see Parisian engineering marvels like the Eiffel Tower, the Catacombes, and des Égouts de Paris, the sewer system that goes back to Napoleonic times, discussing the improbability of the structures still existing. Dr. Tarrant’s friends at Chateau de Correaux will teach us about wine-making and risk. We will experience the Abbaye de Cluny’s virtual reconstruction and learn how probabilities helped the team determine what the structures might have looked like. The monks at Taizé will discuss the unlikelihood of peace and the work that it took to insure it after the Second World War. The beaches at Normandy will be the perfect place for a discussion of the calculated risk of the D-Dy invasion. Since we will be based in Paris, we will see well-known museums like Musée d’Orsay, Musée de Cluny, and the Louvre, among many other sites. Of course we will check in on the progress at Notre Dame de Paris.  

Although the beginnings of probability go back to prehistoric times, modern probability really develops in France from the 1500s. France was the epicenter of progress in probability until the early 20^th century. We will see places and objects that helped in this development, all the while discussing how probability plays a role in many modern marvels.