Interdisciplinary Courses

IDSY 195 Navigating Your Academic Journey: Building Skills and Self-Regulation This course is designed for first year students whose experiences in the fall term included academic challenges that led to setbacks in their progress toward graduation. Designed as a 0.5 unit course, this experience is meant to complement and support students' successful work in their three concurrent courses. A wide-ranging exploration into the literature of learning and self¬ regulation forms the academic heart of the course. Class time will be devoted to learning-by-doing student skill building activities related to the structure and workload of concurrent courses.
IDSY 215 Introduction to Complex Systems Study of how collective behavior emerges from the interaction between a system's parts and its environment. Model systems from the natural sciences and social sciences will be used as examples. Both historical and contemporary approaches will be discussed.
IDSY 295 Pedagogy for Peer Supports This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of pedagogy and teach you strategies for helping peers with diverse backgrounds and learning styles strengthen their academic skills.
IDSY 295 Let's Study Abroad This course will support students as they move from exploring options for study abroad to completing their study abroad application. Students will consider how study abroad fits into their overall "plan" including academic and financial factors. Along the way, students will consider how various aspects of their identities may shape - and be shaped by - their experiences abroad, and reflect on what it means to participate responsibly in a new community and culture. This course is specifically aimed at students who hold identities that are historically under-represented among study abroad participants, including Black students, first-generation students, and PELL recipients.
IDSY 295 Hill: Nola Cluster The overarching investments of the seminar are to 1) consider the scope and stakes of research in the humanities and 2) explore how place-based learning and experiential engagement practices enhance our understanding, analysis, and social justice problem-solving capabilities. Through our collaboration with community members, orgs, and each other, we will consider the following: How do the humanities enable us to address social problems? How can humanistic study and inquiry allow for socially just problem-solving? What types of research avenues and methodologies do the humanities engage in and for what purpose? How do we collaborate within and across disciplinary fields within the humanities?
IDSY 295 Urban Planning as Liberal Art In 2007, for the first time in history, more people lived in cities than rural areas. By 2050, nearly seven in 10 people in the world will live in cities. But what makes a city? What do a city and its residents owe one another? This course explores contemporary issues and the strengths of cities, as well as the pervasive influences of racism, ableism, and systems of exploitation and exclusion that shape our cities. Though we consider cities in global and historical perspective, we focus on 10/03/2022 transformative participation and neighborhood organizing in Kalamazoo as a case study. Team taught with City of Kalamazoo Planners.
IDSY 295 Copenhagen to Kalamazoo: Cities and Cycling Infrastructure and Culture This course builds on the work of the "Wheels of Change" First-Year Seminar to provide an optional space for students in the seminar to reflect on their experiences traveling in Copenhagen and to use what they've learned in Copenhagen to revisit the project work they completed in the seminar. This course is open only to students who have completed "Wheels of Change". We will continue to work on the goals and objectives of "Wheels of Change," incorporating our international experience and the broadened view it provides for us as we return to Kalamazoo to address local issues with fresh eyes. Must have taken SEMN-182.
IDSY 295 Pre-Internship Course This pre-internship course is open to first years, sophomores and juniors who intend to complete an internship over the summer. Students who complete this course are eligible to take the Post-Internship Course offered in the fall to earn academic credit for their summer internship. In this course students will engage in practical skills such as goal setting, read, discuss, and prepare to apply articles that focus on theories of "work", as well as practice critical reflection to help prepare for the best possible summer internship experience. Open to first years, sophomores and juniors
IDSY 298 Independent Study
IDSY 305 Dynamic Models in Social Science The study of why mathematical and computational methods are important in understanding social phenomena, and how different social phenomena can be described by proper mathematical models. Specifically, applications of the theory of dynamical systems will be presented. Designed for math/science and social science students. Either MATH/PHYS 270 or this course, but not both, may be counted towards the major in mathematics.
IDSY 395 Your Work in the World The Fall 2020 Your Work in the World course marries internship experience with linked academic work and is designed specifically as an opportunity for juniors as an experiential education replacement for lost study abroad opportunities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students do not need to have an internship lined up to register for this course.
IDSY 395 Experiential Learning in Context This course accompanies an experiential education opportunity and provides a way for students to learn about, reflect and improve on a non-traditional learning experience. This experience can be an internship, volunteer position, employment, service-learning opportunity, or other relevant position. A minimum of 50 hours of engagement in the experiential component is required during the quarter in which the student takes this course. Students will explore contextual and/or theoretical issues related to the experiential component and engage in career-readiness activities in order to connect different types of learning to their K Plan. A student may take this course multiple times for credit if the course content is different.
IDSY 600 Teaching Assistantship