The Focus Program offers first- and second-year undergraduate students the opportunity to approach topics from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The program features interdisciplinary seminar clusters, small group seminars, shared housing among Focus students, and integrated learning experiences on-campus and in the community.
Thirteen interdisciplinary course clusters are scheduled for 2009-2010, and four are affiliated with University Institutes and Centers (UICs).
The Genome Revolution & Its Impact on Society
The goal of this cluster is to explore the "Genome Revolution" in its many forms and help students begin to understand the social, cultural, and scientific meaning of genomic advances and the questions such advances pose for our collective future. Each of the courses in the cluster will explore the theme from a different perspective, with the result that students will be exposed to the complexity of the subject and will develop an enhanced understanding of the issues that we face as a society and as individuals. This cluster is designed for students with widely varied interests, ranging from humanities students with little science background, to potential science majors who hope to understand the scientific and social implications of their future work.
Find more info on the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP) website: http://genome.duke.edu/education/undergraduate/focus-program-cluster.php
Global Health: Local & International Disparities
This cluster will guide students as they explore the following questions: Why are some infectious diseases easier to control or eliminate than others? How do we gather information and test hypotheses about the population–level determinants of human health and disease? In what instances has international law been a positive force for addressing these inequalities and when has the law itself compounded and extended the problem? What does economics have to say about why people engage in unhealthy behavior?
This cluster will train students to identify factors that influence individual and population–level health in the United States and abroad. We will examine the biological, legal, economic and social underpinnings of the spread and reduction of diseases by using case studies of global infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS as well as chronic diseases such as mental health disorders, substance abuse, and cardiovascular disease. This cluster will also examine the transition from a predominantly infectious diseases health burden to a chronic and behavioral disease burden.
Find more info on the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) website: http://globalhealth.duke.edu/education/degrees/focus
Exploring the Mind
Exploring the Mind is an introduction to the multidisciplinary study of the mind. This cluster will address such questions as: the nature of minds and mental phenomena; the connection between perception, cognition, and the world; how the brain has evolved and how the mind develops through one’s life; how brain mechanisms contribute to our understanding of human experience; consciousness and the self; and the possibility of programming computers to have artificial minds. This cluster will appeal to anyone curious about understanding how the mind/brain works to produce sensation, perception, thought, emotion, consciousness, and language—and how these phenomena can be computationally modeled in machines.
Modeling Economic and Social Systems
This cluster, with faculty from economics, political science, sociology, and statistics, will teach students how to build and test models in the social sciences. There are two types of courses in this cluster. The introductions to game theory and statistical modeling provide students with training in mathematical methods so that they can quickly get to the point where they are able to engage in original research. The courses on culture and games will allow students to build models of human behavior and see how methods are applied in the social sciences. As part of their applied course, students will be asked to work in small groups and complete an original research project. Students will have access to computer labs and experimental facilities at the Social Science Research Institute. The hope is that this cluster will serve to generate cohorts of undergraduates who will be able to engage in increasingly sophisticated research during their tenure at Duke.
