Urban Studies

Source: https://histlit.fas.harvard.edu/urban-studies- Parent: https://histlit.fas.harvard.edu/hl90s

The Urban Studies field provides students with the opportunity to study urbanization through history and literature. It prepares students to understand the processes that shape cities and their surroundings from multiple perspectives. The field integrates different areas of inquiry, exposing students to both qualitative and quantitative reasoning. Students in Urban Studies explore the aesthetic, cultural, political, and social dimensions of urban experiences across historical periods and geographies.

In addition to the requirements for all concentrators (5 tutorials and 1 course that satisfies the language requirement), students in the Urban Studies field complete the following requirements:

• 1 core course that takes a cross-cultural, historical, and interdisciplinary approach;
• 1 course with substantial focus on quantitative reasoning;
• 1 course with historical focus on a period before 1900;
• 1 course with historical focus on the period 1900-2000;
• 4 elective courses in the Urban Studies field, balanced across disciplines.

One First-Year Seminar may count as an elective. Students may also petition for two courses of credit taken through a study abroad program, at another University in the Boston area, or in a professional school at Harvard.

Browse our list of Courses That Count for Urban Studies, and use the Urban Studies Field Worksheet to plot your course of study.