| SYMSYS1 | Minds and Machines | (Formerly SYMSYS 100). An overview of the interdisciplinary study of cognition, information, communication, and language, with an emphasis on foundational issues: What are minds? What is computation? What are rationality and intelligence? Can we pred... |
| SYMSYS104 | Introduction to Race and Technology | How do ideas about race get encoded in the design of new technology? How have science and technology shaped our understanding of race and identity? Drawing on research in anthropology, history, media studies, STS, and beyond, we will consider how tec... |
| SYMSYS112 | Challenges for Language Systems | Parallel exploration of philosophical and computational approaches to modeling the construction of linguistic meaning. In philosophy of language: lexical sense extension, figurative speech, the semantics/pragmatics interface, contextualism debates.... |
| SYMSYS122 | The Social & Economic Impact of Artificial Intelligence | Recent advances in computing may place us at the threshold of a unique turning point in human history. Soon we are likely to entrust management of our environment, economy, security, infrastructure, food production, healthcare, and to a large degree... |
| SYMSYS132 | Language and Thought | Languages vary tremendously in how they allow us to express ourselves. In some languages, you have to say when an event happened (past, present, future, etc.), while in others it is obligatory to say how you know about the event (you saw it, you hear... |
| SYMSYS151D | Ethical STEM: Race, Justice, and Embodied Practice | What role do science and technology play in the creation of a just society? How do we confront and redress the impact of racism and bias within the history, theory, and practice of these disciplines? This course invites students to grapple with the c... |
| SYMSYS167D | Philosophy of Neuroscience | How can we explain the mind? With approaches ranging from computational models to cellular-level characterizations of neural responses to the characterization of behavior, neuroscience aims to explain how we see, think, decide, and even feel. While... |
| SYMSYS168A | A.I.-Activism-Art | Lecture/studio course exploring arts and humanities scholarship and practice engaging with, and generated by, emerging emerging and exponential technologies. Our course will explore intersections of art and artificial intelligence with an emphasis on... |
| SYMSYS176S | Studying Stanford: Governance, Culture, and Innovation | This is the first course of a two-quarter sequence that will be completed, in the second quarter, with the Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) course "Governance, Culture, and Innovation in Oxford" (to be taught in Oxford, UK, during the Summer of 2... |
| SYMSYS190 | Senior Honors Tutorial | Under the supervision of their faculty honors adviser, students work on their senior honors project. May be repeated for credit. |
| SYMSYS191 | Senior Honors Seminar | Recommended for seniors doing an honors project. Under the leadership of the Symbolic Systems program coordinator, students discuss, and present their honors project. |
| SYMSYS192 | Symbolic Systems in Practice | A professionalization course that fulfills the Practicum requirement of the Symbolic Systems undergraduate major Capstone. Online lectures, readings, assigned exercises, and live discussions relate the SymSys curriculum to a substantial work experien... |
| SYMSYS193 | Public Service and Social Impact: Pathways to Purposeful Careers | How do I translate my interests and skills into a career in public service and social impact? This course will introduce you to a wide range of roles that help shape public policy and civic life, including government, education, nonprofits, social en... |
| SYMSYS195A | Design for Artificial Intelligence | A project-based course that builds on the introduction to design in CS147 by focusing on advanced methods and tools for research, prototyping, and user interface design. Studio based format with intensive coaching and iteration to prepare students fo... |
| SYMSYS195B | Design for Behavior Change | Over the last decade, tech companies have invested in shaping user behavior, sometimes for altruistic reasons like helping people change bad habits into good ones, and sometimes for financial reasons such as increasing engagement. In this project-ba... |
| SYMSYS195D | Research in Digital Democracy | Digital democracy refers to social activity that is organized democratically at a group, institutional, or societal level, and that takes place within or is augmented by digital technology. This is a project-based research seminar designed to teach s... |
| SYMSYS195E | Experimental Methods | Graduate laboratory class in experimental methods for psychology, with a focus on open science methods and best practices in behavioral research. Topics include experimental design, data collection, data management, data analysis, and the ethical con... |
| SYMSYS195G | Design for Play | A project-based course that builds on the introduction to design in CS147 by focusing on advanced methods and tools for research, prototyping, and user interface design. Studio based format with intensive coaching and iteration to prepare students fo... |
| SYMSYS195I | Image Systems Engineering | This course is an introduction to digital imaging technologies. We focus on the principles of key elements of digital systems components; we show how to use simulation to predict how these components will work together in a complete image system simu... |
| SYMSYS195L | Methods in Psycholinguistics | Over the past ten years, linguists have become increasingly interested in testing theories with a wider range of empirical data than the traditionally accepted introspective judgments of hand-selected linguistic examples. Consequently, linguistics ha... |
| SYMSYS195M | Measuring Learning in the Brain | Everything we learn - be it a historical fact, the meaning of a new word, or a skill like reading, math, programming or playing the piano - depends on brain plasticity. The human brain's incredible capacity for learning is served by a variety of lear... |
| SYMSYS195N | Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning | Methods for processing human language information and the underlying computational properties of natural languages. Focus on deep learning approaches: understanding, implementing, training, debugging, visualizing, and extending neural network models... |
| SYMSYS195S | Service Design | A project-based course that builds on the introduction to design in CS147 by focusing on advanced methods and tools for research, prototyping, and user interface design. Studio based format with intensive coaching and iteration to prepare students fo... |
| SYMSYS195T | Natural Language Processing in the Social Sciences | Digital communications (including social media) are the largest data sets of our time, and most of them are text. Social scientists need to be able to digest small and big data sets alike, process them and extract psychological insight. This applied... |
| SYMSYS195U | Natural Language Understanding | Project-oriented class focused on developing systems and algorithms for robust machine understanding of human language. Draws on theoretical concepts from linguistics, natural language processing, and machine learning. Topics include lexical semantic... |
| SYMSYS195V | Data Visualization | Techniques and algorithms for creating effective visualizations based on principles from graphic design, visual art, perceptual psychology, and cognitive science. Topics: graphical perception, data and image models, visual encoding, graph and tree l... |
| SYMSYS196 | Independent Study | Independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. Can be repeated for credit. |
| SYMSYS197 | Practicum in Teaching SymSys 1 | The purpose of this practicum course is to prepare students to lead discussion sections of Minds and Machines (SYMSYS 1 / CS 22 / LINGUIST 35 / PHIL 99 / PSYCH 35). The course will provide pedagogical training in the context of introductory cognitive... |
| SYMSYS1P | A Practical Introduction to Symbolic Systems | An optional supplement to "Minds and Machines" (SYMSYS 1), aimed at prospective majors in Symbolic Systems. Students will learn from the perspectives of faculty, alums, and advanced students about how to navigate the many paths available to a student... |
| SYMSYS200 | Minds and Machines | (Formerly SYMSYS 100). An overview of the interdisciplinary study of cognition, information, communication, and language, with an emphasis on foundational issues: What are minds? What is computation? What are rationality and intelligence? Can we pred... |
| SYMSYS201 | Digital Technology, Society, and Democracy | The impact of information and communication technologies on social and political life. Interdisciplinary. Classic and contemporary readings focusing on topics such as social networks, virtual versus face-to-face communication, the public sphere, voti... |
| SYMSYS202 | Theories of Consciousness | Are fish conscious? Are fetuses? Could we build a conscious computer? Much of the philosophical work on consciousness has focused on whether consciousness is wholly physical, but that question is orthogonal to the more specific questions about consci... |
| SYMSYS203 | Cognitive Science Perspectives on Humanity and Well-Being | In recent years, cognitive scientists have turned more attention to questions that have traditionally been investigated byhistorians, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists, e.g. What are the sources of conflict and disagreement betw... |
| SYMSYS205 | The Philosophy and Science of Perception | Our senses tell us about our immediate environment, but what exactly do they tell us? Our color experiences tell us that the things around us have color properties, but what in the world are color properties? Do we visually represent absolute size as... |
| SYMSYS207 | Conceptual Issues in Cognitive Science | This seminar will cover a selection of foundational issues in cognitive science. Topics may include modularity, representation, connectionism, neuroscience and free will, neuroimaging, implants, sensory experience, the nature of information, and cons... |
| SYMSYS208 | Computer Machines and Intelligence | It has become common for us to see in the media news about computer winning a masters in chess, or answering questions on the Jeopardy TV show, or the impact of AI on health, transportation, education, in the labor market and even as an existential t... |
| SYMSYS20Q | The Data-Driven World | Recent technological advancements have enabled us to measure, record, and analyze more data than ever before. How can we effectively use this data to solve real-world problems and better understand the world around us? In this course, we will learn h... |
| SYMSYS212 | Challenges for Language Systems | Parallel exploration of philosophical and computational approaches to modeling the construction of linguistic meaning. In philosophy of language: lexical sense extension, figurative speech, the semantics/pragmatics interface, contextualism debates.... |
| SYMSYS245 | Cognition in Interaction Design | Note: Same course as 145 which is no longer active. Interactive systems from the standpoint of human cognition. Topics include skill acquisition, complex learning, reasoning, language, perception, methods in usability testing, special computational... |
| SYMSYS280 | Symbolic Systems Research Seminar | A mixture of public lectures of interest to Symbolic Systems students (the Symbolic Systems Forum) and student-led meetings to discuss research in Symbolic Systems. Can be repeated for credit. Open to both undergraduates and Master's students. First... |
| SYMSYS290 | Master's Degree Project | No Description Set |
| SYMSYS291 | Master's Program Seminar | Enrollment limited to students in the Symbolic Systems M.S. degree program. May be repeated for credit. First meeting 10/3/22. No meeting in Week 1. |
| SYMSYS295D | Research in Digital Democracy | Digital democracy refers to social activity that is organized democratically at a group, institutional, or societal level, and that takes place within or is augmented by digital technology. This is a project-based research seminar designed to teach s... |
| SYMSYS296 | Independent Study | Independent work under the supervision of a faculty member. Can be repeated for credit. |
| SYMSYS297 | Teaching in Symbolic Systems | Leading sections, grading, and/or other duties of teaching or helping to teach a course in Symbolic Systems. Sign up with the instructor supervising the course in which you are teaching or assisting. |
| SYMSYS298 | Peer Advising in Symbolic Systems: Practicum | Optional for students selected as Undergraduate Advising Fellows in the Symbolic Systems Program. AFs work with program administrators to assist undergraduates in the Symbolic Systems major or minor, in course selection, degree planning, and relating... |
| SYMSYS299 | Curricular Practical Training | Students obtain employment in a relevant research or industrial activity to enhance their professional experience consistent with their degree programs. Meets the requirements for curricular practical training for students on F-1 visas. Students sub... |
| SYMSYS2S | Introduction to Cognitive Science | Cognitive Science explores one of sciences final frontiers; the scientific study of the human mind. It is a broad interdisciplinary field that encompasses research from areas in neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science... |
| SYMSYS8 | The Logic Group (Oxford) | If all dogs bark and Fido is a dog, it follows that Fido barks. If Clark Kent owns a car, it follows that Superman owns a car, since Clark Kent is Superman. Yet you might wonder why these statements follow from the said assumptions. Can this perhaps... |