Social Impact Curriculum

Case Studies 

3 credit hours

This course explores the challenges and opportunities in the evolving field of technology for social impact by evaluating case studies across a range of technologies and applications. Class sessions are interspersed with student presentations and lively discussions around best practices, implementation strategies, and technology's role(s) in development.

Students Gain: knowledge of past and present Social Impact projects, characteristic of project success and failure, hands-on understanding of several technology platforms, the ability to match available technologies with human and environmental needs and resources.

Global Development

3 credit hours

This course is designed to introduce students to the complex and inter-related nature of global development, including understanding the major historical outcomes, theories, institutions, policies, alternatives/critiques and themes in international and community development. The class will explore specialized themes including, Indigenous knowledge, Liberation theology and Conflict, alongside debating hot topics such as public/private partnerships, microfinance, and social entrepreneurship. The course will provide an opportunity to students to discuss and debate the ethics of global practice and to locate its politics.

Students Gain: Students will leave the course with a sensitivity to understanding the needs of underserved and under-represented individuals and communities.

Introduction to Programming *or* Creative Code

3 credit hours

For students with little to no programming experience, the Intro to Programming class gives students the coding experience needed for more advanced programming classes and many technical focus classes. For students with prior programming experience, Creative Code explores creative uses of software development, while focusing on developing the “digital plumbing” that supports our creative work.

Fieldwork Methods

3 credit hours

This course introduces the methods and models that can be employed in the design, development, and deployment of social impact projects. This class will examine the applications of participatory research, ethnography, ethics in developing-world context, community assessment, behavior change communication, monitoring and evaluation, study design, and quantitative and qualitative data collection and (preliminary) analysis.

Students Gain: experience with multi-method approaches to “doing development”, a “toolbox” of useful and practical on-the-ground skills.

Creative Technologies

3 credit hours

This course gives students of all backgrounds hands-on exposure to a wide range of technologies (including: 3D printing, laser-cutting, microcontrollers, sensors and IoT, programming, etc.) Through making, students build their technical fluency and confidence, while identifying technology skills they wish to further develop throughout the program.

Students Gain: foundational knowledge, technical confidence, exposure and awareness, strategies and experience for learning new technologies

Elective: Critical Perspectives or Technical Focus

3 credit hours

Critical Perspectives: Based on interest (Public Health, Education, Energy, Gender, etc) students can select from a range of domain-specific courses offered within ATLAS and across campus.

Technical focus: Based on interest (e.g. mobile, product, etc), students can select from a range of technical courses offered within ATLAS and across campus. Students customize their skill set based on professional goals.  

Students Gain: Deeper theoretical understanding and sectoral expertise in the domain of their choice

Social Impact Lab

3 credit hours

In this studio course students learn to create technologies for underserved communities. Students work in multidisciplinary teams on projects in collaboration with community partners, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields. Students learn the workflow for designing and evaluating user-centered designs, from need-finding to prototyping to evaluation. The Social Impact lab course is designed to bring everything that students have learned thus far about technology, development and methods together in one cohesive project. “Lab” is intended to be a dress rehearsal for the Social Impact practicum.

Students Gain: Hands-on project experience, project management experience, collaborative team learning, direct client experience, prototype development.

Elective: Technical Focus 

3 credit hours

see description above

Elective: Critical Perspectives

3 credit hours

Based on interest (Public Health, Education, Energy, Gender, etc) students can select from a range of domain-specific courses offered within ATLAS and across campus.

Students Gain: Deeper theoretical understanding and sectoral expertise in the domain of their choice

Practicum

6 credit hours

A hallmark of the Social Impact program is the practicum experience. Students spend a full semester working with a organization in a social impact specific role. Student develop a scope of work and list of deliverables and present on these at the end of the practicum. This semester- long experience positions students for graduation, as they have a project and on the ground experience to highlight on their resume.

As part of the completion of the practicum experience, students develop a video. This prepares them to talk about their work and contributions to audiences both aware and potentially unfamiliar with the field of social impact. This video collateral can be used on their websites/portfolios.

Students gain: Hands-on social impact experience in the field, scope of work outline development and negotiation, communication and presentation digital media skills.

Workshops 

In addition to taking 33 credits of courses, students can round out their experience through a wide range of workshops, offered in various formats. The workshop series allows students to explore new areas of interest, gain additional skills, network with industry leaders, collaborate with non-Social Impact students and further develop their skills.  These vary each semester, but examples of workshops offered previously or currently on the calendar include Adobe Creative Suite, Bio Meets Computation, Programming in Python and R, Branding from Conception to Pitch, Data Science for Social Impact, UI/UX, Portfolio Development, Designing your Career, and Pitching Your Work.