Sample a class

Attend an undergraduate class and get a feel for what it’s like to be a UW student. See the list of available classes below. Don’t forget to register for a guided tour and admission presentation.

Note: Classes start March 31

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A Global History of the Built Environment

This course critically examines built environments over time using a global perspective beginning with First Societies through 1st millennium CE. The global perspective encourages thinking about history in a transnational and transgeographical manner. The course is broadly structured around the concept of "time cuts" that allow for comparisons across regions and cultural formations.

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Anthropology and Sport

Introduces theories, methods, and findings of sociocultural anthropology through a focus on sport. Considers sport as linked to identities, nationalism, gender, race, class, religion, and other issues. Explores cultural rituals of sport, potentials and obstacles to sport transcending social differences, and sport's role in education, youth development, and community building.

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Asian American Stereotypes in the Media

Asian stereotypes popularized by American literature, film, radio, and television and their effects on Asian American history, psychology, and community.

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Astronomy

Introduction to the universe, with emphasis on conceptual, as contrasted with mathematical, comprehension. Modern theories, observations; ideas concerning nature, evolution of galaxies; quasars, stars, black holes, planets, solar system.

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Biopsychology

Examines the biological basis of behavior, the nervous system, how it works to control behavior and sense the world, and what happens when it malfunctions. Topics include learning and memory, development, sex, drugs, sleep, the senses, emotions, and mental disorders.

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Chicanas: Gender and Race Issues

Contemporary issues in the Chicana movement since the 1940s. Issues range from feminism and Chicana political, educational, and social organizations, to work, family, health, and the arts.

Note: Please email Professor Arreola (lagunera@uw.edu) ahead of time with the date you plan to visit the class to confirm availability.

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Climate and Climate Change

The nature of the global climate system. Factors influencing climate including interactions among the atmosphere, oceans, solid earth, and biosphere. Stability and sensitivity of climate system. Global warming, ozone depletion, and other human influences.

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Climate Governance: How Individuals, Communities, NGOs, Firms, and Governments Can Solve the Climate Crisis

Examines climate change, its causes and impacts (on ecosystems, water availability, extreme weather, communities, health, and food) globally, nationally, and locally. Surveys its solutions (mitigation, adaptation, migration, and just transition), actors that implement them (governments, firms, NGOs, activists, communities, individuals) and approaches they use (regulation, markets, planning, innovation, social movements, behavioral change).

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Communicating about Health: Current Issues and Perspectives

Provides an overview of health communication topics and perspectives for students who are interested in pursuing careers in the health industry and those with a research interest in health communication such as caregivers, health care administrators, marketing and public relations professionals, media planners, public health promoters, and educators, researchers and others.

Note: Limited visit capacity. Please email Professor Meischke (hendrika@uw.edu) ahead of time with the date you plan to visit the class to confirm availability.

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Confronting Global Diseases: Introductory Biologic Principles and Context

Provides a broad introduction to the leading causes of disability and death globally. Covers the basic biologic and scientific principles of globally prevalent human health problems, including the connections between the biology of disease and current prevention and treatment interventions used in public health. Not intended for biological science majors.

<strong>Note: Please email Professor Ojo (ojo67kk@uw.edu) ahead of time with the date you plan to visit the class to confirm availability.</strong>

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Data Programming

Introduction to computer programming. Assignments solve real data manipulation tasks from science, engineering, business, and the humanities. Concepts of computational thinking, problem-solving, data analysis, Python programming, control and data abstraction, file processing, and data visualization.

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Diplomacy, Strategy, and United States Foreign Policy

Explores key theories and approaches that shape U.S. foreign policy, with a focus on history and political science. Covers diplomacy, strategy, and U.S. foreign relations, including military, economic, and cultural aspects. Includes how domestic, international, and transnational processes shape these policies and their global impact. Provides a well-rounded understanding of U.S. foreign affairs

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Elementary French

Development of speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills to a basic level of proficiency. Teaches students to communicate in French and understand the cultural context of the language. Methods and objectives are primarily oral-aural. First in a sequence of three.

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Elementary Italian

Develops speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills to a basic level of proficiency. Teaches students to communicate in Italian and understand the cultural context of the language. Methods and objectives are primarily oral-aural, and classes are taught through a task-based approach. Third in a sequence of three.

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Environmental Health in Media

Explores how the perspective of filmmakers and documentaries can influence the public's interpretation of environmental health issues, and examines the science and cultural norms that support both sides of the argument.

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Existentialism and Film

What makes life worth living? Is morality just a convenient fiction? What is the nature of the human condition? Is God dead, or just playing hard to get? Investigates the works of several existentialist philosophers, including Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Beauvoir, and uses their works to interpret and analyze the philosophical content of angst-ridden cinema of the French New Wave and Hollywood film noir.

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First-Year Japanese

Elementary speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills in modern Japanese. Third in a sequence of three.

Note: Lecture time for mid-term exam on 4/29, no class on Week 10.

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Forests and Society

Survey course covering forest ecosystems of the world, history of forestry and forest conservation, how forest ecosystems function, wildlife in forests, environmental issues in forestry, forest management, economics and products, and new approaches to forest management. Open to majors and non-majors.

Note: prospective students should introduce themselves at the beginning of class. Expect to stay for only the first hour for lecture.

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Foundational Skills for Data Science

Introduces fundamental tools, technologies, and skills necessary to transform data into knowledge, including data manipulation, analysis, and visualization, as well as version control and programming languages used in data programming. Students learn to work with real data, and reflect on the power and perils of using data to inform.

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General Chemistry

For science and engineering majors. Atomic nature of matter, quantum mechanics, ionic and covalent bonding, molecular geometry, stoichiometry, solution stoichiometry, kinetics, and gas laws.

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Geographies of International Development and Environmental Change

Explores how concepts, theories, and ideologies of international development and environmental issues interrelate. Approaches development and environment through several interconnected topics: population, consumption, carbon, land, and water. Examines how these issues connect people and places around the world.

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Global Environmental History, Feast and Famine

Examines how consumption in societies such as China, India, Japan, Africa, Europe, and the Americas developed from 1500 to the present. Broad patterns of global history and how they fit into debates about environmental history.

Note: Please email Professor Dhavan (pdhavan@uw.edu) ahead of time with the date you plan to visit to confirm your attendance, and introduce yourself at the beginning of class.

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Global Markets, Local Economies

Introduces basic economic concepts and tools to analyze the growing economic impact of economic globalization on local economies around the world, in areas such as local and foreign investment, supply chains, international trade, financial markets, and economic growth.

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Heat, Fluids and Electricity and Magnetism

Principles of heat, fluids, and electromagnetism using algebra-based modeling with an emphasis on applications in life sciences.

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Introduction to Asian American Studies

Provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Examines issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality, immigration/migration, citizenship, labor, racialization, exclusion, social and political activism and social movements, family, community-building, war, imperialism, sovereignty, (post) colonialisms, transnationalism, culture, and creative expressions.

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Introduction to Comparative Literature: Genres

Reading and analyzing literature based upon rotating genres such as sci-fi, detective fiction, romance, love, poetry, and comedy. Draws from world literature.

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Introduction to Computer Programming I

Introduction to computer programming for students without previous programming experience. Students write programs to express algorithmic thinking and solve computational problems motivated by modern societal and scientific needs. Includes procedural programming constructs (methods), control structures (loops, conditionals), and standard data types, including arrays.

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Introduction to Environmental Economics

Introduces environmental and natural resource economics. Discusses fundamental economic concepts, including markets and private property. Includes basic tools used in the economic assessment of environmental problems and applies these methods to key environmental issues.

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Introduction to Environmental Studies

Examines the ethical, political, social, and scientific dimensions of environmental issues. Integrates knowledge from different disciplines while evaluating environmental problems at various scales. Uses an environmental justice lens to examine the ways problems are concentrated in some communities while providing opportunities to practice environmental communication and collaboration across disciplines.

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Introduction to Global Literatures: Literary Genres Across Time and Place

An introduction to literary study. Literature from around the globe, with focus on a specific genre such as novel, short story, fairy tale, myth, drama, lyric or epic poetry.

Note: Some scheduled days may not have class. Please contact Professor Florczyk (piotrf@uw.edu) ahead of time with the date of your visit to confirm class schedule.

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Introduction to International Relations

The world community, its politics, and government.

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Introduction to Linguistics

Language as the fundamental characteristic of the human species; diversity and complexity of human languages; phonological and grammatical analysis; dimensions of language use; and language acquisition and historical language change.

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Introduction to Microeconomics

Analysis of markets: consumer demand, production, exchange, the price system, resource allocation, government intervention.

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Introduction to Psychology

Surveys major areas of psychological science. Core topics include human social behavior, personality, psychological disorders and treatment, learning, memory, human development, biological influences, and research methods. Related topics may include sensation, perception, states of consciousness, thinking, intelligence, language, motivation, emotion, stress and health, cross-cultural psychology, and applied psychology.

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Introduction to Statistical Methods

Survey of principles of data analysis and their applications for management problems. Elementary techniques of classification, summarization, and visual display of data. Applications of probability models for inference and decision making are illustrated through examples.

Note: Please email Professor Madunic (mmadunic@uw.edu) ahead of time with the date you plan to visit to confirm your attendance, and introduce yourself at the beginning of class.

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Introduction to Visualization and Computer-Aided Design

Methods of depicting three-dimensional objects and communicating design information. Development of three-dimensional skills through freehand sketching and computer-aided design using parametric solid modeling.

Note: Lecture time for mid-term exam on 5/7 and 6/4.

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Mechanics

Principles of mechanics using algebra-based modeling with an emphasis on applications in life sciences.

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Media and Society

Explores how modern media impacts society. A significant portion of the course will be dedicated to the emerging effects of new media, such as online reporting and social networking applications, on the current political and social landscape.

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Natural History of the Puget Sound Region

Focuses on identification and ecology of defining organisms in major habitats of the Puget Sound region. Geology, climate, and early human history provide a framework for understanding the distribution and development of these habitats. Emphasizes a variety of techniques for the observation and description of nature.

Note: Prospective students should email Professor Billo (timbillo@uw.edu) in advance to check whether or not the class is in the classroom.

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Perspectives on Television: Analysis

Provides an introduction to television styles and aesthetics, with particular attention to camerawork, narrative, acting, and sound.

Note: there are exams on April 14th, May 5th, and May 19th. Please do not sample this class on these dates.

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Popular Film and the Holocaust

Introduces films about the Holocaust with particular emphasis on popular films. Develops the requisite tools for analyzing films, a historical perspective of the Holocaust, and the problems involved in trying to represent a historical event whose tragic dimensions exceed the limits of the imagination.

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Principles of Biological Anthropology

Evolution and adaptation of the human species. Evidence from fossil record and living populations of monkeys, apes, and humans. Interrelationships between human physical and cultural variation and environment; role of natural selection in shaping our evolutionary past, present, and future.

Note: topics include sex and evolution by natural selection.

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Social Problems

Processes of social and personal disorganization and reorganization in relation to poverty, crime, suicide, family disorganization, mental disorders, and similar social problems.

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Space and Space Travel

Explores the sun, solar storms, observations from space and from Earth; Earth's space environment, radiation belts and hazards, plasma storms and auroras, rockets and propulsion, human exploration efforts, societal impact, planetary systems and resources, and project highlighting space and its exploration.

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Survey of Physiology

Human physiology.

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Swearing and Taboo Language

Examines swear words and taboo language, both within and across cultures, investigating their linguistic, pragmatic, neurological, psychological, social, and legal aspects.

Note: This course includes discussions of potentially offensive language.

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The Military History of the United States From Colonial Times to the Present

Development of American military policies, organizational patterns, tactics, and weaponry, from beginnings as a seventeenth-century frontier defense force to the global conflicts and military commitments of the twentieth century. Interaction and tension between need for an effective military force and concept of civilian control of that force.

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The Planets

For liberal arts and beginning science students. Survey of the planets of the solar system, with emphases on recent space exploration of the planets and on the comparative evolution of the Earth and the other planets.

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The Question of Human Nature

Considers the relationship between the individual and his/her culture. Traces the evolution of the notion of human nature in Europe and the United States and compares this tradition with representations of the human being from other cultural traditions.

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The Urban Farm

Develops students' understanding the ecological connections between food production, human health, and planetary sustainability. Teaches basic skills needed for food production in urban areas and the ethics behind sustainable urban agriculture, including a hands-on component on the farm at the biology greenhouse.

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The Water Crisis in Literature and Film

Interprets a variety of texts (literary, cinematic, etc.) that address the water crisis to understand how water's meaning has changed as people become more conscious of risks in supply (pollution and natural/man-made scarcity) and as access to it is increasingly mediated in light of things like privatization and commodification.

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Themes and Topics in Art History

Introduces students to new ideas, developing themes, and current research in art history and visual culture.

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Wildlife in the Modern World

Covers major wildlife conservation issues in North America. Some global issues are also treated. Examples of topics include the conservation of large predators, effects of toxic chemicals on wildlife, old-growth wildlife, conservation of marine wildlife, recovery of the bald eagle, and gray wolf.

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