IT and Society Courses
These courses are only applicable for seniors graduating in 2025 and 2026. The course requirements will be changing for students who graduate in 2027 and beyond. Do not rely on any of these courses to count toward the minor that should be in place starting fall 2026.
This course requirement is intended to provide an understanding of the technology and societal aspects through a discipline-based study of both sides.
Technology Courses:
Each student is required to take two technology courses from a list that includes the courses below. These courses are mostly drawn from a set that includes courses specifically designed for a wider campus audience (no prerequisites). An advanced/one-time only course may be used to replace one or both of these courses with the permission of the program adviser.
APC 524/MAE 506/AST 506 – Software Engineering for Scientific Computing
COS 109/EGR 109 – Computers in Our World (may be taken instead of COS 126, but not both)
COS 126 – General Computer Science (may be taken instead of COS 109, but not both)
COS 324 – Introduction to Machine Learning
COS 350 – Ethics of Computing
COS 424/SML 302 – Fundamentals of Machine Learning (previously entitled: Interacting with Data)
COS 429 – Computer Vision
COS 432/ECE 432 – Information Security
COS 433/MAT 473 – Cryptography
COS 436 – Human-Computer Interaction (also a breadth technology course)
COS 445 – Economics and Computing (was Networks, Economics and Computing)
COS 455/MOL 455/ QCB 455 (undergrads) and COS 551/MOL 551/QCB 551 (grads) – Introduction to Genomics and Computational Molecular Biology
COS 461 – Computer Networks
COS 551/MOL 551/QCB 551 – Introduction to Genomics and Computational Molecular Biology (was COS/MOL/QCB 455)
ECE 201 – Information Signals
ECE 206/COS 306 – Contemporary Logic Design
ECE 364 – Machine Learning for Predictive Data Analytics
ECE 368 – Introduction to Wireless Communication Systems
ECE 435 – Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition
ECE 464 – Embedded Computing
ECE 470/COS 470 – Principals of Blockchain
ECE 472 – Architectures for Security Computers and Smartphones (previously ECE 470 – Smartphone Security and Architecture)
ECE 473/COS 473 – Elements of Decentralized Finance
ECE 535 – Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition
ECE 574 – Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications
EGR 371/ENT 371 – Designing the Future of Work: Public Interest Technology Development
MAE 345 – Introduction to Robotics
ORF 387 – Networks
ORF 401 – Electronic Commerce
ORF 467 – Transportation Systems Analysis
ORF 473 – Special Topics in ORFE – Financial Technology and Data-Driven Innovation
POL 346 – Applied Quantitative Analysis
QCB 455/MOL 455/COS 455 – Introduction to Genomics and Computational Molecular Biology
SML 354/PHI 354 – Artificial Intelligence: A Hands-on Introduction from Basics to ChatGPT
SOC 555/COS 598J – Limits to Predictions
TRA 301/COS 401/LIN 304 – Introduction to Machine Translation
Societal Courses:
Each student is required to take two societal courses from a list that includes the courses below. An advanced/one-time only course may be used to replace one or both of these courses with the permission of the program advisor.
AAS 301/SOC 367 – Black to the Future: Science, Fiction, and Society
AAS 339/EGR 339 – Black Mirror: Race, Technology and Justice
ANT 211 – Surveillance, Technoscience, and Society
ANT 238 – Human, Machine, and In-Between: The Anthropology of AI
ANT 455 – Visible Evidence: Documentary Film and Data Visualization
COM 332/HUM 332/TRA 332 – Who Owns This Sentence? Copyright Culture from the Romantic Era to the Age of the Internet
COS IW – Seminar Policy Clinic or Technology Policy Clinic (There is a different number every semester, and only the seminars taught by Mihir Kshirsagar or Katrina Ligett (only fall 2022) count toward the T&S certificate. This seminar may count as a RSC or used as a student’s independent work for the certificate, but not both.
COS 351 – Information Technology and Public Policy
COS 448/EGR 448 – Innovating Across Technology, Business, & Marketplaces
COS 586/SPI 586F* – Topics in STEP: Technology Policy and Law (title was Information Technology and Public Policy)
COS 597C – Advanced Topics in Computer Science: Computer Science for Public Policy and Law
ECO 326 – Economics of the Internet: The Digital Revolution
EGR 395 – Venture Capital and Finance of Innovation
EGR 495/ENT 495 – Special Topics in Entrepreneurship: Critical Design Studio
ENV 377 – Sustainable Cities in the US and India: Technology Policy & Entrepreneurship Pathways
FRS 122 – Connection and Communication in the Digital Bazaar
FRS 128 – Tech/Ethics
FRS 159 (was FRS 163 for fall 2016 and fall 2017) – Science, Technology and Public Policy
FRS 179 – Princeton and the Dawn of the Information Age
HIS 278 – Digital, Spatial, Visual, and Oral Histories
HIS 298 – Information Revolutions
HUM 331/HIS 336 – A History of Words: Technologies of Communications from Cuneiform to Coding
HUM 346/ENG 256 – Introduction to Digital Humanities
JRN 260 – Media in America: What to Read and Believe in the Digital Age
PHI 350/CHV 356 – Ethics of Emerging Technologies
PHI 371 – Philosophical Foundations of Probability and Decision Theory
PHI 411/CHV 411/POL 407 – Free Speech in the Internet Age
POL 327 – Mass Media, Social Media, and American Politics
POL 341 – Experimental Methods in Social Science
SOC 204 – Social Networks
SOC 215 – The Sociology of the Internet
SOC 306/SML 306 – Machine Learning with Social Data: Opportunities and Challenges
SOC 382 – Political Economy of the Digital Society
SOC 409*/COS 409 – Critical Approaches to Human Computer Interaction
SOC 414/COS 415 – Can We Build Anti-Racist Technologies?
SPI 334/SOC 319 – Media and Public Policy
SPI 338 – When Old Debates Were New Again: Exploring the Theoretical Origins of Internet Policy
SPI 352 – Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy
SPI 365 – Tech/Ethics
SPI 412 – Science for Policy and Policy for Science
SPI 490 – Policy Advocacy Clinic Seminar (The spring semester of this course can count for your independent work for the certificate. You may use this course as a RSC or for your IW, but not both.)
SPI 492 – Down the Rabbit Hole: Combating Far-Right Radicalization and Disinformation on U.S. Social Platforms
SPI 586F – Topics in STEP: Technology Policy and Law (was
(1 course required):
In addition to the technology and society courses, each student is required to take one course that combines technology and society in an area outside of IT. For engineering/science students this should be based in the societal disciplines, and for humanities and social science students this should be based in the science/technology disciplines.
Breadth Technology Courses:
ANT 325/MAE 347 – Robots in Human Ecology: A Hands-on Course for Anthropologists, Engineers, and Policymakers (also a breadth societal course)
APC 199/MAT 199 – Math Alive
AST 309/MAE 309/PHY 309/ENE 309 – The Science of Fission and Fusion Energy
CEE 102B/EGR 102B/MAE 102B – Engineering in the Modern World
CEE 325 – Environmental Biotechnology (also a breadth societal course)
COS 436 – Human-Computer Interaction (also a required technology course)
ECO 416 – Fintech
EGR 421/SPI 487/SAS 421 – Reimagining Digital Public Infrastructure in India and Globally (also breadth societal course)
ENV 367/GEO 367 – Modeling the Earth System: Assessing Strategies for Mitigating Climate Change
FRS 141 – The Mathematics of Secrecy, Search, and Society! (fall 2019 only)
FRS 174 – The Science and Art of Mapping the World (spring 2021 only)
MAE 228/EGR 228/CBE 228/ENE 228 – Energy Technologies for the 21st Century
MAE 328/EGR 328/ENV 328/ENE 328 – Energy for a Greenhouse-Constrained World
NEU 537/MOL 537/PSY 517 – Computational Neuroscience
POL 345/SOC 305/SPI 211 – Introduction to Quantitative Social Science (also breadth societal course)
SOC 301 – Statistical Methods in Sociology (also breadth societal course)
SOC 555/COS 598J – Limits to Predictions
SPI 200 – Statistics for Social Science
SPI 353/MAE 353 – Science and Global Security: From Nuclear Weapons to Cyberwarfare and Artificial Intelligence
Breadth Societal Courses:
AMS 399/HIS 399 – In the Groove: Technology and Music in American History, From Edison to the iPod
ANT 302 – Ethnography for Research Design
ANT 223/AMS 223/AAS 224/ URB 224- Policing and Militarization Today
ANT 325/MAE 347 – Robots in Human Ecology: A Hands-on Course for Anthropologists, Engineers, and Policymakers (also a breadth technology course)
ANT 354 – Digital Anthropology: Methods for Exploring Virtual Worlds
ANT 360/CHV 360 – Ethics In Context: Uses and Abuses of Deception and Disclosure
ANT 437/AAS 437 – Gaming Blackness: The Anthropology of Video Games and Race
ARC 492/URB 492/ENV 492 – Topics in the Formal Analysis of the Urban Structure: Environmental Challenges of Urban Sprawl
CBE 260/EGR 260 – Ethics and Technology: Engineering in the Real World
CEE 102A/EGR 102A/MAE 102A – Engineering in the Modern World
CEE 325 – Environmental Biotechnology (also a breadth technology course)
CEE 392/HUM 392 – Engineering Justice and the City: Technologies, Environments, and Power
CEE 401/ENV 401 – Zero Carbon, Resilient, Equitable Cities: Infrastructure Innovations and System Analysis
CHV 333/PHI 344 – Bioethics: Clinical and Population-Level
ECO 332/GHP 332 – Economics of Health and Health Care
EGR 219/ENT 291/REL 219 – Professional Responsibility & Ethics: Succeeding Without Selling Your Soul
EGR 383/ENT 393 – Design Research and Humanistic Innovation
EGR 421/SPI 487/SAS 421 – Reimagining Digital Public Infrastructure in India and Globally (also breadth technology course)
EGR 488 – Designing Ventures to Change the World
EGR 491/ECE 491 – High-Tech Entrepreneurship
EGR 494 – Leadership Development for Business
EGR 497 – Entrepreneurial Leadership
ENE 475/PSY 475 – Human Factors 2.0 – Psychology for Engineering, Energy, and Environmental Decisions
ENV 303/EEB 303 – Agriculture, Human Diets and the Environment
ENV 304/ECO 328/EEB 304/SPI 455 – Disease Ecology, Economics, and Policy
ENV 316 – Climate Science and Communication
ENV 458/ANT 458 – Environmental Technologies: Infrastructure, Ethics, and Society
FRE 380/ECS 387 – Technophobia
FRS 114 – Technology and the Environment
FRS 118 – Life on Mars – or Maybe Not
FRS 139 – The Coming of Driverless Cars
FRS 162 – Bioethics: Public Policy, Ethics and the Law
FRS 172 – Two titles: Origins of Modern Communications and Principles of Innovation and Money, Markets and Morals
GER 211 – Introduction to Media Theory
GHP 350/SPI 380/ANT 380 – Critical Perspectives in Global Health
HIS 295 – Making America: Technology and History in the United States
HIS 387/ENG 389/CDH 387 – Data & Culture
HIS 390 – Formations of Knowledge: Historical Approaches to Science, Technology, and Medicine. Former title: History of Science, Technology, and Medicine: Ideas and Methods
HUM 349/STC 350/COM 374 – Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence: Fiction, Technology, Storytelling
ITA 320/COM 378 – Cybernetics, Literary Ghosts and the Italian Way
NES 366/ENV 366 – Oil, Energy and The Middle East
PHI 277/CHV 277 – Biomedical Ethics
POL 345/SOC 305/SPI 211 – Introduction to Quantitative Social Science (also breadth technology course)
PSY 409 – Cyborg Psychology
SOC 301 – Statistical Methods in Sociology (also breadth technology course)
SOC 384 – Steering the Future: Exploring the Impact of Driverless Cars
SOC 373/AMS 428/URB 373 – Systemic Racism: Myths and Realities
SPI 354 – Modern Genetics and Public Policy
STC 349 – Writing About Science (was called Science Journalism)
THR 210A-B/STC 201A-B – Storytelling for Technology and Performance
VIS 206 – Feminist Technoscience: Art, Technology, & Gender
Registrar Course Offerings Homepage
*Indicates the course may not always be offered.