• Code as a Liberal Art Hero

    Code as a Liberal Art

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  • Program Contact

    Program Director, Code as a Liberal Art
    Rory Solomon

    Assistant Professor, Code as a Liberal Art
    solomonr@newschool.edu

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  • Lang’s Code as a Liberal Art minor enables you to develop skills in code and computational thinking as tools for critical and creative inquiry and for better understanding how computational systems affect different aspects of society. Through discipline-specific projects, you gain coding skills that expand your literacy in computational logic and let you further your own creative practice. You explore algorithmic thinking and consider questions of access, equity, and social justice in relation to technological systems.

    • Study Options Minor

    Big data and algorithmic processes structure almost all aspects of contemporary life. Students minoring in Code as a Liberal Art critique the effects of these processes. Through hands-on experience, you learn foundational skills in code and use computation as a tool to enhance your liberal arts education—to better analyze, communicate, create, and learn. You are introduced to the theory and practice of computational thinking and learn to code to help answer research questions and to express yourself creatively.

    In additional to offering practical coding skills, the minor provides you with a broader understanding of the historical and social factors that have led to the increasing presence of computational systems in our lives. You think critically about the ways humans interact with computation, gaining an understanding of its limits from philosophical, logical, mathematical, and public policy perspectives.

    Minor requirements

    Connecting to New York City

    While it offers the atmosphere and intimacy of a small college, Eugene Lang College is part of The New School, a major progressive university in New York City. The Code as a Liberal Art Minor introduces students to a variety of code-based researchers and practitioners through guest speakers and opportunities to participate in coding events around the city, including events sponsored by Data & Society, Processing Community Day NYC, and  Babycastles artist’s collective.

    Career Paths

    In Code as a Liberal Art courses, you learn how to think critically about technology. You gain skills in code and computational thinking that prepare you for a career in a range of areas, including media production, software design/development, data journalism, advocacy, and nonprofit and community development work, as well as graduate study. Consult our 4-Year Lang Career Pathways Map (PDF) for helpful steps and resources to link your academic journey to your future plans.

    If you are planning to go on to graduate study, consider applying to the accelerated BA/MA program, which enables you to earn graduate credits that apply to both your Lang degree and a master’s degree at The New School.

    Outcomes at Lang

  • Featured Courses

    All students in the minor take Code as a Liberal Art, which provides an introduction to basic coding skills through a series of projects and examines how coding and computational thinking intersect with different disciplines and creative practices. Students can then choose between a number of rotating electives at Lang and Parsons. Recent courses include:

    • LCOD 2115

      Live Coding

      Live coding is the creative practice of writing and editing computer programs as multimedia performance. Also referred to as real-time or on-the-fly programming, the result is a feedback loop in which the performer manipulates the code of a running system to modify its output, often in an improvisat...

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    • In this hybrid theory/practice seminar students will both critically examine, and learn how to craft, the code that drives computational machinery, focusing on its relevance to the domains of the liberal arts: the humanities, the arts, and the social and physical sciences. Students will learn the fu...

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    • This course provides an introduction to the foundational building blocks of software development, such as variables, control structures, data structures, and modular code organization. Coding work will be conducted using the Javascript programming language, and while examples and syntax will be spec...

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  • Learn from and work with faculty mentors from a variety of disciplines who are academic scholars and creative practitioners.

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Undergraduates

To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

Undergraduate Adult Learners

To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Graduates

To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

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