Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Science

This is the foundational tenet of cognitive science. It is the interdisciplinary study of human behavior and intelligence, with a focus on how information is perceived, processed and transformed. The field draws from anthropology, biology, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy and sociology to learn how the mind determines behavior. Students interested in artificial intelligence, linguistics, education, the health sciences and sociocultural careers will want to explore this field of study. For students interested in the liberal arts the cognitive science major can be pursued as a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) program. Alternatively, it can be pursued as a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) program for students with a stronger interest in the mathematical, neurological and computational foundations of the discipline. The main objective of both programs is to give the student a broad grounding in the integrated sciences of the mind and to connect approaches from different fields. Students must complete a number of core courses for the degree, as well as a number of specialty courses on such wide-ranging topics as logic for artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, animal cognition and the psychology of music.

A degree in Cognitive Science provides broad intellectual foundations useful for careers in a variety of areas, including teaching, business, social work/counseling and the information technology industry. Undergraduate education in cognitive science also prepares the student for graduate study in appropriate subfields of psychology, linguistics, philosophy and informatics. It is also suitable training for pre-medicine, pre-law, and premanagement students.