UC Center, London

Data analytics addresses methods for collecting, managing, interpreting, and visualizing large datasets. An understanding of basic statistical reasoning is an essential requirement across professional spaces such as an economist, as is the ability to manipulate data using specialized computer software. This course introduces rigorous statistical data analysis and provides training in the use of MATLAB, which is an excellent tool for understanding basic statistical calculations. The course lays out the perceptual and cognitive foundation of how practitioners understand and perceive stories, data graphics, and, ultimately, visual storytelling. In this London-based module, the students take advantage of studying in one of the world’s great financial capitals as well as top destinations for overseas students. The course introduces broad classes of techniques and tools for analyzing and visualizing data at scale while teaching the scientific process of transforming data into insights for making better business decisions. It emphasizes how to combine computation and visualization to perform effective analysis and storytelling. The course covers methods from each side and hybrid ones that combine the best of both worlds.

The course introduces a wide range of issues concerning the role of cinema in the British cultural context, as distinct from and in connection with the cinemas of Hollywood and Europe. The course focuses on the following aspects: cinema as an economic system operating within an international audio-visual market; cinema and national identity, particularly representations of London as Metropolis; genre in cinema; and cinema as a formal system, considering questions of authorship, narrative and audience.

The course focuses on the differing approaches and styles used by global media. Students investigate press and journalism business models, issues of globalization, and examine cross-national differences in terms of ethics, media content, and access to creative industries. It also considers theories around social change and globalization.

This intensive course enables students to understand and measure the process, impact, funding needs, and challenges of sustainable social entrepreneurship. Students learn about the growing trend of entrepreneurs looking to identify and bring about transformative societal change through their business activities. Students assess current approaches, profitability, challenges, and opportunities of social entrepreneurship, as both business owners and consumers seek to find sustainable solutions to complex social problems. Discover how social entrepreneurs develop creative solutions to address both local and global social problems and gain the tools to make an impact on the lives of others. The course increases awareness and understanding of the main challenges affecting the world, and how Social Enterprises can be a definite factor of change. The course focuses on team development; self-awareness for leading, persuading, and working with others; effective business planning; and communicating. The subject concentrates on social impact projects targeting areas such as the environment, inequality, poverty, education, future employment, etc. The course re-introduces key concepts that students may have studied in previous syllabuses in entrepreneurship, economics, and social science. It also develops more advanced themes that address emerging issues in business planning, finance, funding, and marketing literature specifically relevant to projects with a social impact. The course emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of social change and stresses practical business matters when addressing transformation via the formulation of a specific proposal/project that students deliver at the end of the term.

This course introduces students to the rich museum culture of London. Through lectures, seminars, and visits to museums such as the British Museum, National Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Museum of London students explore how museums create histories of art, society, and national identity. The course draws on the approaches of several disciplines – art, social, and cultural history, anthropology, social geography, and critical theory – to interrogate the ways that museums reflect and shape what we know and how we see. Exploring a selection of sites dating from the eighteenth century to the present day, the course considers the historical context in which these museums came about, the nature of their collections, and debates on current presentation, considering issues of museology, curatorial practice, and the construction of knowledge.