The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we work, interact, and make decisions. AI is integrated into applications and devices that are woven into our daily lives. How does AI work? What impact will AI have on individuals, communities, and our global society?
This course aims to provide students with the knowledge and skills to become informed digital citizens in the age of AI, ready to navigate the digital landscape. Students will gain fundamental technical understanding of how computers, the Web, and AI work, and will study three programming languages: HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Students will also examine and discuss societal and ethical issues related to the Web and AI technologies, and consider responsible and future use of these technologies.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 40
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 110
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. No prior background with computers is expected.
Instructor: Shaer
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: Mandatory Credit/Non Credit.
CS 110L/MAS 110L is a required co-requisite lab for CS 110/MAS 110.
Units: 0
Max Enrollment: 13
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 110L
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. No prior background with computers is expected.
Instructor: Melnick
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Video games are a popular form of interactive media that engage players in dynamic experiences through unprecedented combinations of storytelling, visualization, interactivity, and multi-sensory immersion. This course will introduce students to video game production and concepts. We will develop a framework for critically analyzing this medium, learn to identify effective strategies for creating games and describe what elements of design impact the final experience of a game. We’ll also identify the function of user agency in this medium to better understand how players are affected by representation in video games. Throughout the course, students will be asked to apply these concepts while building their own games and become familiar with the fundamentals of video game design.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 121
Prerequisites: None. Open to First-Years and Sophomores. Juniors and Seniors by permission of the instructor.
Instructor: Tynes
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall and Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes:
An intermediate studio course addressing a range of contemporary drawing methods, with considerable attention put towards color, graphic sequencing and pictorial space. Project work integrates print and digital design tools with sustained freehand drawing in wet and dry media. Weekly drawing assignments, readings, and studio discussions consider the graphic conventions of reproducible media, such as the hatched mark, halftone screen, and color separation layer. Building on fundamental concepts introduced at the 100 level, this course helps students strengthen and expand their personal drawing practice and connect it to a wider range of creative disciplines and topics. Following a series of coordinated drawing projects, each student assembles a final portfolio and presents an independent final project.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 14
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 20 5
Prerequisites: At least one 100-level ARTS course taken at Wellesley.
Instructor: McGibbon
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course is repeatable one time for additional credit.
Digital games visualize compelling worlds that can resemble real-life environments and imagine other-worldly spaces. These virtual realms frame our experience of games and their design dramatically impacts our interpretation of their narratives and mechanics. Designers code environments to shape player agency and weave complex relationships between game characters. This course will teach students to create digital worlds and critically assess them as politically rich spaces that convey meaning. Students will build both 2D and 3D digital environments, coding elements such as interactivity and non-player entities, crafting game experiences that tell meaningful stories. CS221 continues to explore the Unity Game Engine and topics introduced by CS121, but enrollment is suitable for any student with 100-level coding experience and an interest in game design.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 221
Prerequisites: Any 100-level CS course.
Instructor: Tynes
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
In the past decade, historians of art have increasingly turned to network analysis as a tool to investigate the production and reception of visual and material culture. Combining analytical readings with hands-on tutorials, this course introduces students to the conceptual and technical frameworks of network analysis as they apply to artifacts, works of art, and popular visual culture, as well as the people who made and experienced these images, objects, and monuments. Students will learn to model and analyze networks through the lens of art historical and material culture case studies. Topics may include social networks, geospatial networks, similarity networks, and dynamic networks. Case studies will range from arts of the Ancient Americas to manuscript workshops in Mughal India and Medieval France.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 222
Prerequisites: Fulfillment of the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) component of the Quantitative Reasoning & Data Literacy requirement. ARTH 100 recommended.
Instructor: Brey
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Degree Requirements: DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRF); DL - Data Literacy (Formerly QRDL)
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Not Offered
Notes:
How can the complexities of Cultural Heritage be captured in digital form? Can advanced media visualizations, such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, give new insights on diverse global cultures? Can public dissemination of research using gamification positively impact our lives in the present? What ethical responsibilities do scholars have when digitizing material from ancient and contemporary communities? How can we ensure that our digital cultural achievements last as long as pyramids built in stone? This course will pair readings on the theory, practice, and ethics of visual and public digital humanities cultural heritage projects. Online archival resources for cultural heritage are at the forefront of developing public digital humanities. The digital archive resources used in class will be used to critique current trends in digital data capture and open access resources. The final project will be the creation of a new digital cultural heritage resource, presenting content created by students through a digital platform: an interactive archive, augmented or virtual reality, location-based games, or a combination thereof. Students will be offered a choice of visual and textual cultural heritage archive data from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, UC Berkeley Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and the National Museum of Sudan, or can identify their own open-access cultural heritage archival source of interest.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 246
Prerequisites: None
Instructor: Norton
Distribution Requirements: SBA - Social and Behavioral Analysis
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
How can we use “Art” to make lemonade life’s proverbial lemons into lemonade? Where do imagination, social justice, and personal expression intersect? What can we invent to transform our lives and those around us? And how can we bring those inventions to fruition when the physics and facts of life test our tenacity at every turn? Using skills from multiple-disciplines we will study/read/view trajectories of invention, test and practice cognitive strategies for overcoming own innate neuro-biological hurdles, and strive to create solutions using our collective powers. Drawing, painting, and writing exercises will strengthen observational muscles, both internal and external; divergent thinking exercises will help with ideation. Each student will produce a tangible or conceptual invention that addresses one of their deepest concerns, be it personal, political, or hybrid. The invention may be delivered as a proposal/blueprint for production; it may be the object itself. The group will collectively decide on parameters for deliverables.
Requirements: Sense of humor, compassion, and an open mind.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites:
Instructor: Lapp
Distribution Requirements: ARS - Visual Arts, Music, Theater, Film and Video
Typical Periods Offered: Summer
Notes:
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Open to juniors and seniors.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 0.5
Max Enrollment: 25
Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 15
Prerequisites: Permission of the department.
Instructor:
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.
Students with a deep personal interest in digital game design and other forms of playable media will work in collaborative units to explore all aspects of the game development process while contributing to a semester-length project of their own devising. This course will require students to explore an ethical approach to game development that will introduce new practices for ideation, pitching, designing, playtesting, and versioning through an iterative process that will result in a finished game. This course is specifically designed for students who have moderate experience with game development through either curricular activities or by working on projects of their own. Students will be expected to have moderate levels of experience with the Unity Game Engine.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 365
Prerequisites: One of the following - CS 321, CS 221/MAS 221, CS 220, CS 320, or (CS 121/MAS 121 and CS 230), or permission of the instructor (portfolio must be able to demonstrate some previous experience with game development).
Instructor: Tynes
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Spring
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Spring
Notes: This course may be used to fulfill the capstone requirement for the MAS major.
Students with deep interest in interactive media will drive cutting-edge research that shapes and examines novel user experiences with technology. Students will work in small groups to identify a direction of research, explore and iterate over designs, prototype at varying fidelities, build working systems, consider ethical implications, conduct evaluative studies, and report findings. This course is designed for students who have experience in designing and implementing interactive media through either curricular activities or by working on projects. Students will be expected to have moderate levels of experience with front-end web development.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 18
Crosslisted Courses: MAS 366
Prerequisites: One of the following - CS204, CS220, CS320 or CS323.
Instructor: Shaer
Distribution Requirements: MM - Mathematical Modeling and Problem Solving
Typical Periods Offered: Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall
Notes: This course may be used to fulfill the capstone requirement for the MAS major.
Units: 1
Max Enrollment: 35
Prerequisites: MAS 360 and permission of the department.
Typical Periods Offered: Spring; Fall
Semesters Offered this Academic Year: Fall; Spring
Notes: Students enroll in Senior Thesis Research (360) in the first semester and carry out independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. If sufficient progress is made, students may continue with Senior Thesis (370) in the second semester.