University of St Andrews

This course focuses on contemporary global health issues, with emphasis placed on contextualizing global, national, and subnational health disparities. Students study how health, the environment, and sustainable development are interrelated and work to improve our understanding of both policy and practice. Therefore, students are introduced to important actors and their stated goals. Students examine cases from low- and middle-income countries, as well as from high-income countries. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach, using various perspectives including sociology, bioethics, epidemiology, anthropology, clinical medicine, and political science. 

This course introduces students to the study of comparative literature through plays written in the 20th and 21st century from France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the USA. All texts are read in English translation. The course introduces students to a representative and canonical range of fictional works, with focus on one literary genre - drama - and one over-arching theme. The theme is currently "Staging the Political," but may change depending on staff availability. 

Western philosophy, although often concerned with practical questions such as how one ought to live, almost invariably restricts itself to theoretical methods of enquiry. This course examines other philosophical traditions, such as Zen Buddhism, that instead give great prominence to practical methods in the pursuit of their enquiries, most notably, breathing techniques and various forms of meditation. The course focuses on key philosophical issues raised by the adoption of non-theoretical modes of enquiry, including epistemological questions such as the justificatory status of non-alethic modes of knowledge-acquisition (e.g. meditation), and questions in the philosophy of mind concerning the conception of the Self developed and disclosed through meditation. The course also discusses ethical questions raised by a philosophical practice that appears to privilege individual attainment over socially shared commitments.

This vertically integrated project (VIP) brings together researchers and students from various disciplines who share an interest in the Eden Estuary, near to St Andrews. The Eden Estuary is a Local Nature Reserve (LNR) and locals benefit from this nature reserve in many ways, including recreational and educational. Like many other nature reserves, the Eden Estuary and its inhabitants are exposed to a number of immediate and local as well as global and accumulative pressures caused by humans. It is therefore essential to research these pressures on the Estuary and then disseminate findings and lessons from our observations while also developing solutions that will not only benefit the Estuary itself but can also be employed in other parts of the world. Students who take part in this project have an inter-disciplinary and engaging learning experience, contribute to conversations and collaborations on sustainability in and around the Eden Estuary, and consider the Eden Estuary as a delta in miniature that offers an insight into ecological and human patterns past, present, and future, that can be observed elsewhere and at larger scales. By participating in this VIP, students have the opportunity to learn about a wide range of research methods and technologies and are able to convey their findings in various formats such as policy-mapping, decision-trees, and citizen science research.

This course develops foundational computing skills in Python and sharpens these skills through practice with exploration and problem-solving within the contexts of Applied, Pure, and Statistical Mathematics.

The course develops students' understanding of the classical linear econometric model (ordinary least squares). It covers a range of topics, including estimation and inference in multivariate regression models; the use of limited dependent variables; large sample properties of OLS estimators; multicollinearity and heteroskedasticity. The course develops students' applied skills through the use of appropriate econometric software.