Undergraduate Minor in Digital Studies

Undergraduate students in the College of the University of Chicago may undertake a minor in Digital Studies as a complement to their primary field of study. This minor is intended not just for students who are majoring in the humanities or social sciences. It may also be of interest to students majoring in the physical or biological sciences who wish to acquire computational skills in the context of linguistic, cultural, and historical studies.

Students who elect to do the minor in Digital Studies must meet with the Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction of the Forum for Digital Culture before the end of the Spring Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor. Students must complete a Consent to Complete a Minor Program form with the assistance of their College advisor and submit this to the Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction for approval.

Requirements

Students must take six courses to complete the undergraduate minor in Digital Studies, as specified below. Students who have taken courses in computer programming and/or statistics to fulfill the requirements of their major(s) or other minor(s), or to fulfill their general education requirements, may not double-count those courses to reduce the total number of courses required for the minor in Digital Studies. In that case, they will take additional Digital Studies course(s) from the list under number 5 below.

Courses taken for the undergraduate minor in Digital Studies may not be double-counted with the student’s major(s), other minors, or general education requirements. Courses in the minor must be taken for quality grades, and more than half of the requirements for the minor must be met by registering for courses bearing University of Chicago course numbers.

1. EITHER DIGS 20001, Introduction to Computer Programming Using Python (offered annually in the Autumn Quarter) OR CMSC 14100, Introduction to Computer Science I.

2. EITHER STAT 22000, Statistical Methods and Applications (offered every quarter) OR DIGS 20002, Introduction to Statistics Using Python (offered annually in the Winter Quarter). Please note that STAT 20000, Elementary Statistics, does not fulfill this requirement, although STAT courses more advanced than STAT 22000 would do so.

3. DIGS 20003, Data Management for the Humanities (offered annually in the Autumn Quarter).

4. DIGS 20005, Data Publication for the Humanities (offered annually in the Winter Quarter).

5. Two of the following Digital Studies courses:

    • DIGS 20004, Data Visualization for the Humanities (Spring)
    • DIGS 20006, Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities (Spring)
    • DIGS 20009, Machine Learning for the Humanities (Autumn)
    • DIGS 20007, History and Theory of Computing for the Humanities (Autumn)
    • DIGS 20021, Digital Archaeology (Spring)
    • DIGS 20031, Digital Texts I: Corpus Building and Corpus Statistics (Winter)
    • DIGS 20032, Digital Texts II: Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning (Spring)
    • DIGS 20035, Introduction to Cultural Analytics (Spring, if offered)
    • DIGS 20041, Digital Media I: Game Design with Unity (Winter)
    • DIGS 20042, Digital Media II: Extended Reality with Unity (Spring, if offered)
    • DIGS 20043, Digital Media III: Creating 3D Worlds with Blender (Winter)

Please note the following prerequisites:

1. DIGS 20004, DIGS 20005, and DIGS 20009 each have as a prerequisite DIGS 20001 or an equivalent introduction to computer programming.

2. DIGS 20004 and DIGS 20009 also have as a prerequisite DIGS 20002 or an equivalent introduction to statistics. 

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