Programs

Undergraduate Program - Secondary Field in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

The History of Science Department offers a secondary field in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. This field gives students concentrating in other departments an opportunity to take a coherent cluster of courses in the history of science, technology and medicine. The program is designed to give students, first, a foundational sense of the field, and then, permit them to do more advanced work, including courses that will allow them to focus on particular interests and to do original research and other projects.

Requirements: 5 Half-courses

1. History of Science 100: Knowing the World: An Introduction to the History of Science

2. One “gateway” course: a course of wide scope but focusing on a specific area in the history of science, technology or medicine. Gateway courses include:

Ethical Reasoning 33. Medical Ethics and History – (New Course)
History of Science 106. History of Ancient Science
History of Science 108. Bodies, Sexualities, and Medicine in the Medieval Middle East
History of Science 125. "Moneyball" Nation: Science and the Making of Modern America - (New Course)
History of Science 135. From Darwin to Dolly: A History of the Modern Life Sciences - (New Course)
History of Science 136. History of Biotechnology
History of Science 142. History and Politics of the American Obesity Epidemic - (New Course)
History of Science 146. Introduction to Women’s Bodies in Medicine - (New Course)
History of Science 148. History of Global Health
History of Science 157. Sociology of Science
History of Science 174. Critical Experiments in the Human Sciences
History of Science 180. Science, Technology, and Society in Modern East Asia

3. Three elective courses in the history of science, ordinarily chosen from the 100-level
courses in the History of Science chapter of Courses of Instruction.

200-level courses may be taken only with the permission of the instructor.
Students may use one (but no more) of their three elective courses to take an additional gateway course.
One Freshman Seminar taught by a department faculty member may be counted as one of the three elective courses.
Students will be permitted to take one (but no more) of their three elective courses outside the department, choosing alternatives from a regularly updated list of approved courses posted on the department website (all cross-listed courses printed in the Courses of Instruction count automatically in this category).

Other Information

With the exception of Freshman Seminars taught by department faculty members, all courses must be letter-graded. There is no minimum passing grade for courses to count towards the secondary field.
Decisions about whether courses from study abroad, Harvard Summer School, or other Harvard schools will count for the secondary field will be made on a case-by-case basis by the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
In department courses with limited enrollment, first priority will be given to History and Science concentrators; students affirming that they are doing the secondary field in History of Science will have next priority.