University College London

This course explores the history of emotions in the Greek and Roman world through literature and their relevance to the modern world. It focuses on emotions like wrath, eros and love, jealousy, fear, loss and separation, affection, happiness, sadness, surprise, contempt, disgust, pity, sympathy, pain and on how these emotions have been represented in Greek and Roman cultural systems and literary examples (both Greek and Roman literary texts will be explored and compared). How were these emotions born and what is their influence in the modern world? How does Greek and Roman literature relate to these emotions? And more generally, what is the relationship between these emotions and the Greek and Roman life and thought? After an overview of major Greek and Roman sources on the role of emotions in human life, the course explores the complex debate around emotions, their value and their use for philosophical, religious, political, and educational purposes. 

This course discusses a range of advanced topics in normal and abnormal development, in order to illuminate the processes underlying children’s development. Students learn about diverse cognitive, social, and biological determinants of development, and how the contribution of such factors depends on the domain of development. Students learn about recent theoretical approaches to child cognitive and social development and come to appreciate the conceptual link between views of the adult mind (the end state of development) and theories of how we develop towards this end state. The first section considers typical cognitive development, in particular the development of “higher” reasoning skills and the development of memory. The second section explores a variety of topics in typical and atypical socio-emotional development. There is a focus on the role of the care-giving environment, the importance of both nature and nurture, and longitudinal approaches to studying psychological development.

This course allows students to explore current and enduring educational questions through a sociological lens and to identify the relationships between education and social inequalities. Special attention is paid to issues of social justice, inclusion/exclusion, and possibilities for social transformation. The course considers various axes of power, identity and institutional organization, including sessions focused on social class, race/ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, and learner and teacher identities.  

This course is about the economic effects of taxation, and economic aspects of tax policy. It gives students an understanding of the key economic issues in tax policy, and shows how these can be analyzed using standard tools of theoretical and empirical economic analysis.

This intensive three-week course explores, experiments, and discovers students' creative writing abilities and tastes and embraces creative writing as an ongoing process, an entrepreneurial "fail better" and "succeed together" via constructive feedback experience. Fortune helps those who dare, and sharing one’s own writing can be, albeit a means to self-expression and experimentation, scary, vulnerable, and quite uncertain. In this course, however, students can grow together in a practice-based environment exploring boundaries, challenging stereotypes and developing skills in a fun, intense, and stimulating way. Get inspired by poetry, prose, drama. Get a peek into the publishing world and the life of a writer. Experiment, play, and create with writing styles, language, and online media. More importantly, do what all writers have to do in the end of the day, write! Not a course for the faint of heart, but definitely one for those who want to be more creative, perceptive, develop a writer’s toolbox, and see London with literary-colored glasses. 

The course provides an introduction to statistical and computational methods of analyzing and interpreting genetics/genomics data. Emphasis is placed on statistical model application and interpretation. Students learn how to implement various statistical methods, analyze and visualize genetic data through programming in R and command line tools. The emphasis is on students doing analyses in class, and on the interpretation of the results. Programming forms a major part of this course. Students learn how to write their own scripts to perform advanced statistical analyses of genetic data. This is an advanced, fast-paced course with extensive programming assignments. We strongly advise students with no previous programming experience to undertake the R crash course. A short introduction to R at the start of the module will be given. If enrolling on the module with no previous programming knowledge, please be aware that programming skills can only be obtained through many hours of practice. Good performance in the course is dependent upon additional private study to further develop programming skills.

This course enables students to critically assess aspects of strategic project management. Organizations have to choose where they focus their resources and what they hope to achieve. Strategic project management introduces the key principles of project, program, and portfolio (P3) management, focusing on how projects are selected, sustained and completed. Students have the opportunity to understand how P3 management relates to operational management. Essential management skills such as leadership, team building, and conflict management are explored in the context of strategic management of projects, programs, and portfolios. Through a blended learning approach, students are encouraged to evaluate organizational strategies through case studies both in lectures and coursework. Through strategic business relationships, case studies are both current and relevant. The focus is on providing students with insights based on current practice, significant industry experience, and professional standards.

The course provides an introduction to eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell biology, cell signaling, and virology. Topics include membrane structure and function, cellular organelles, cytoskeleton, cell signaling, cell division, cell physiology, bacterial cell biology, and basic principles of virology.