Harvard University courses

As manufacturing processes approach the physical limits of transistor density, efficient code must exploit parallelism to scale with available computing resources. Scientific software developers must therefore adopt a think-parallel mindset to solve complex…

This course is designed for students seeking preparation for EXPO E-25 and for others wanting to review such basics of academic argument as thesis, evidence, and structure. Short writing assignments help students develop the skills essential for producing…

Harvard University's Introduction to Cybersecurity course offers a foundational exploration into the critical field of cybersecurity, categorized under Emerging Technologies. Designed for aspiring professionals, this course covers essential concepts, threat…

Explore the intricate connections between philosophy and technology with Harvard University’s course, Philosophy of Technology: From Marx and Heidegger to Artificial Intelligence. Delving into the Emerging / Needs Review category, this course examines the…

This course introduces the generally accepted principles that govern an entity's financial accounting system and the income statement and balance sheet that are the principal end products of the system. Students learn how accounting information is used to…

Success in today's software marketplace requires excellent user experience (UX). This course presents the foundations of excellent UX in a platform-agnostic manner. This course requires no programming. Instead, we focus on deciding what to program to make our…

This course provides an overview of economic tools and analytic approaches available to the manager for business decision-making. It includes such topics as pricing, forecasting, demand analysis, production and cost analysis, and macroeconomic policy as it…

What does it mean to lose your home? Who are refugees? Why are there so many forced migrants in our world? How are they displaced? Where do they travel, and why? This course inquires into the nature, causes, and consequences of contemporary refugee waves in…

Harvard University presents an in-depth course on Cognitive Neuroscience, delving into the complexities of brain function and behavior. This Emerging / Needs Review program offers students a rigorous academic exploration of neural mechanisms, cognitive…

This proseminar addresses problems and methods related to the study of government, history, and international relations. It stresses the critical analysis of sources, constructing explanatory models, standards of logical demonstration, as well as organizing…

This course covers the intersection between start-ups, entrepreneurship, and intellectual property (IP) law. Students gain skills with navigation of major tenets of intellectual property law including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets as…

Harvard University presents 'Fundamentals of Academic Writing,' a meticulously designed course in the Emerging / Needs Review category. This program offers a rigorous exploration of academic writing techniques, equipping students with the skills to craft…

The course translates findings from academic research, particularly in positive psychology and behavior change, into attitudes, behaviors, and practices that students can adopt to have happy, fulfilling, and meaningful lives. We explore the foundation of…

This is an advanced fiction-writing course. Class meetings run mainly as workshops: students respond to one another's novel excerpts. We also discuss process, as well as elements of fiction that relate to the novel. Students are expected to produce two new…

This course introduces students to the demands and conventions of academic reading and writing. It focuses on analyzing texts, building effective arguments, and using evidence and secondary source material. Instruction on the stages of the writing process,…

Fairy tales have inspired authors for centuries and we are still very much under their spell. In the first part of this course, we study classic as well as contemporary fairy tales, including works by Helen Oyeyemi, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, and Kelly…

Feature writing combines the literary craft of fiction with the fact-gathering and storytelling skills of the journalist, historian, and documentary filmmaker. These true stories can be both timely and timeless; the narrative becomes a vehicle for something…

Harvard University presents 'Writing in the Social Sciences,' a meticulously designed course under the Emerging / Needs Review category. This academic offering equips students with advanced writing techniques tailored for social science research, fostering…

Offered by Harvard University, this College Algebra course delves into essential mathematical concepts within the Emerging / Needs Review category. Designed for academic rigor, it equips students with foundational skills to tackle complex problems, fostering…

Beginning with the violent street demonstrations in Tunisia in December 2010, the media has followed the course of the Arab Spring as it has spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East. The popular protests, violent reprisals, and full scale civil war…

This course draws upon the diverse experiences of international students to advance ideas for how streets can be the conduit of equitable mobility, improved health, dynamic public spaces, economic opportunity, and urban biodiversity, while addressing the…

From journalism to documentary filmmaking, there is a rich tradition of storytellers who make the decision to insert themselves into their own work. There is good reason for this—making yourself into a character in your own story can be a powerful tool. But…

In 1727, in Leipzig, Johann Sebastian Bach premiered what would become one of the central monuments of Western sacred music: the Passion According to St. Matthew ( BWV 244 ). Three centuries later, this course examines the work both in its original…

Immunology is the study of the immune system, the body's built-in defense system. The lectures cover the basics of immunology, theoretical aspects of practical laboratory approaches and the ways that research is performed to understand immunology. This course…

Why do we go, again and again, to movies that make us scream with terror? Why do we seek out overwhelming fear? Is slaughter really the best medicine? In this course, our mission is threefold. First, we identify the iconography and the visual rhetoric of…

The human mind has been sculpted over millennia to pursue rewarding and pleasurable experiences. Addiction ensnares our mind's pleasure systems, replacing otherwise adaptive behaviors with a restless pursuit of reward. Addictions can occur not only to…

Modern networks have grown to extremely large scale, connecting millions of servers, and high speed, with terabits per second to meet the needs of a variety of cloud applications in business and society (for example, social media, public health, and…

This is an intensive course in the craft and analysis of prose from a writer's perspective. The focus of this course is to teach prose writers how to read well. Students explore the potential and possibilities of different approaches to writing, and, by the…

A work of fiction cannot come to life if its characters are not alive! But how to make our characters come alive on the page? This course focuses intensely on characterization in fiction. To that end, we study how writers render characters vividly on the page…

This course focuses on crucial developments in, and controversies about, the study of world history from 1800 to the present. Topics include the Industrial Revolution, Latin American independence, European colonization of Africa, independence movements in…

This is a rigorous course on the design and analysis of efficient algorithms and their associated data structures. Algorithm design methods, graph algorithms, approximation algorithms, and randomized algorithms are covered.

The global fashion and apparel industry has changed dramatically in the last 20 years to become an industry that today produces between four and ten percent of the world's greenhouse gases. This course explores the historical, social, and environmental…

This course introduces students to the demands and conventions of academic reading and writing. It focuses on analyzing texts, building effective arguments, and using evidence and secondary source material. Instruction on the stages of the writing process,…

This course introduces students to the demands and conventions of academic reading and writing. It focuses on analyzing texts, building effective arguments, and using evidence and secondary source material. Instruction on the stages of the writing process,…

Despite (and perhaps because of) globalization, the internet, and other features of contemporary life, formal bureaucratic organizations continue to shape the world we live in. Government affairs—both domestic and foreign—are still largely the province of…

This course teaches students how to solve problems, both with and without code, with an emphasis on correctness, design, and style. Topics include computational thinking, abstraction, algorithms, data structures, and computer science more generally. Problem…

This is a course for playwrights, fiction writers, and screenwriters. The course explores specific techniques of William Shakespeare's character creation, with the aim of enlarging our own technical repertoire as contemporary writers. Techniques we explore…

This course examines the design, development, and evaluation of learning programs as a strategic and analytical process that extends beyond the design of individual courses. Applicable to corporate, educational, and nonprofit contexts, students explore…

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) presents new opportunities and challenges for anyone creating digital media products—from photographers and podcasters to application developers, user-experience (UX) designers, game creators, and learning…

In this proseminar, students develop the skills necessary to engage in graduate-level research in the field of museum studies. Students read classic scholarly texts in museum studies and complete short assignments designed to hone their academic writing…

This course helps business professionals improve their writing so that they are better equipped to accomplish their educational and professional goals. Students practice some of the essential forms of business writing, including e-mail messages, cover…

This course provides instruction in writing for students considering careers or advanced study in the natural, computational, or applied sciences. Through critical reading of key examples of the genres of scientific literature, students study how scientific…

What are the effects of displacement on tradition, storytelling, and cultural belonging? How does forced migration influence narration, creative expression, and imagination? What are the powers and potentials of artistic communication after existential…

What do humanist scholars do and how do they do it? This preparatory course introduces students to the fundamental skills, techniques, and methods that are applicable for study in any one of the disciplines offered in the humanities, including languages and…

This course analyzes the ethical, social, and policy implications of global demographic change. Through a sustainability lens, students engage with issues such as declining fertility, population aging, migration pressures, and climate-related displacement.…

The goal of this course is to develop skills for making corporate investment and financing decisions. Topics include discounted cash flow and other valuation techniques; risk and return; capital asset pricing model; corporate capital structure and financial…

This course surveys William Shakespeare's comedies, including famous works such as A Midsummer Night's Dream , Twelfth Night , and The Tempest , as well as less produced plays like The Two Gentlemen of Verona . Although the primary focus of study is the plays…

Visions, spirit possession, near-death experiences—experiences of ecstasy are universal in the history of religions. Psychology of religion attempts to explain such experiences using current understandings of the mind. At times, the study of ecstatic…

In this course, we investigate trust, the buyer's decision process, modern selling methodologies, persuasion, and the art of influence. Students apply ideas from each class in their own environment and have the opportunity to sharpen their skills in an…

Born in Florence to expatriate parents and widely familiar with Europe from boyhood family trips, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) displayed social savoir faire already in 1874 at eighteen on arrival in Paris to train as a professional painter. His portfolio…