Honors Colloquium

All SAS Honors Program students are required to complete at minimum one Honors Colloquium. Students who enter the SASHP as first-year students are required to complete a second Honors Colloquium, or an approved alternate: Byrne Seminar or a credit-bearing study abroad program/course.

The goal of the Honors Colloquium is to stimulate intellectual curiosity and discussion as well as provide students with an interdisciplinary approach to learning. Through discussions, lectures, film screenings, and museum visits, students will explore topics of social, scientific, and philosophical significance.

• 01:090:111 | Fall Semester
• 01:090:112 | Spring Semester

 Spring 2020 Honors Colloquium

Life in the Age of Algorithms: Promise and Peril in Big Data

This semester, the SAS Honors Program builds our mission course around the book Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil. In an age when seemingly everything can be measured and stored, Dr. O’Neil argues that relying too much on data and algorithms is increasing inequality and threatening democracy. While the topic clearly connects to computer science, it should resonate with everyone who thinks about how technology affects the human experience.