Undergraduate Curriculum
The Social Impact Design Minor provides students the opportunity to work on the critical social justice issues of our time with community partners in an academic program that integrates research and practice framed in experiential learning. This minor is an interdisciplinary collaboration that requires students to synthesize and apply different modes of inquiry, intellectual perspectives, and problem-solving techniques. Students reflect on their own intellectual assumptions and methods while learning skills that promote successful collaboration in a real-world experience in arts and communication. Together, students, faculty and community organizations explore goals as change makers to have a positive impact in our communities. The minor is open to all majors across the college.
Thinking about spring registration? Did you know you can make an impact on campus and beyond by taking a Social Impact Studio?
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Undergraduate Minor
Social Impact Design
Interested in learning how to use your skills and education to make the world a better place?
Join the Social Impact Design minor, open to students from any major! Social Impact Design students work collaboratively with classmates and community partners to address critical social justice issues, from gun violence and mass incarceration, to climate change. Every class in the minor emphasizes real-world, experiential learning. Through hands-on projects, you will be invited to explore your creative skills and passions for social impact, collaboratively applying art, storytelling and creative thinking to transform unjust systems.
The Social Impact Design minor is 16 credits.
- Open to students from any major with at least a sophomore standing
- 4 credits: SI200 Co-Design Studio (prerequisite or corequisite)
- 12 credits: your choice of three SI300 Social Impact Studios or IN348
You begin the minor with the Co-Design Studio, an immersive course on the methods of collaborative design, in preparation for effective and equitable engagement with a variety of stakeholders in the creation process.
Then you can choose any three Social Impact Studios. Social Impact Studios are multidisciplinary courses where you work with community partners to understand root causes and effects of critical social issues and co-create interventions through arts, media, and communications. You will be contributing to real social change while building your own knowledge and skills.
Social Impact Studios
Games for Social Change
Learn the fundamentals of game design as well as the theory and practice of how game experiences can be used to inform, motivate, build relationships, and inspire action.
Immersive Media: Co-Design for Peace in Boston
Learn the fundamentals of Virtual Reality and/or 360 Video production and explore how to tell stories and create experiences in immersive media environments that inspire people to action.
Co-Design Studio
Foundations course for the Social Impact Design minor
Project Spotlight
Before the Bullets
A conversation with medical professionals from MGH and other local medical centers about their experiences and hopes for the future of gun violence prevention.
Quiet Rooms
Quiet Rooms is a 20-minute documentary about the impacts and root causes of gun violence and was co-created by Emerson students and community members impacted by gun violence.
Carrying On: Norine's Story
Norine Woods' son Troy was killed in a drive-by shooting in Dorchester on August 29, 1999. In this video she shares her experiences as a survivor of gun violence.