Mar 19, 2024  
USC Catalogue 2019-2020 
    
USC Catalogue 2019-2020 [ARCHIVED CATALOGUE]

Cognitive Science (BA)


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Director: Toben Mintz, PhD

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary major that focuses on the mind and cognition from a variety of perspectives and approaches. The core and electives sample from courses from computer science, human and evolutionary biology, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy and psychology.

The major consists of four fixed core courses, plus two tiers of flexible core courses. The first tier generally consists of more introductory courses and the second tier of more advanced courses, although there are exceptions, and some courses satisfy either tier. Students must take two courses from the first tier and three courses from the second. The purpose of the flexible tiers is to structurally implement interdisciplinary breadth with some degree of flexibility. The flexible core is a subset of the electives, from which students can choose in order to complete the required number of units.

Students may elect to focus their curriculum from one of three tracks, which are suggested courses of study for focusing on a particular theme in cognitive science. This may be accomplished through individual advisement: language, reasoning and decision-making, and the computational mind.

Total required units for major: 46–48 units. Consisting of 16 core units, 20 flexible core units and 10–12 elective units.

Units: 16


Flexible Core Requirements (5 Courses)


Electives (3 Courses)


Units: 10-12


*Prerequisite required

Total units: 46–48


Note: A course that is listed in multiple categories can only be applied once. Students must choose a minimum of 16 upper-division units from the flexible core and electives lists.

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