What is cognitive science?
Cognitive science is the study of the mind, of how we come to know the world and how we use that knowledge. Cognitive scientists use theories and methods drawn from many disciplines including cognitive psychology, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, physics, mathematics, biology, and anthropology. They ask questions such as:
• How do people acquire language?
• What are the neural bases of perceiving, learning and remembering?
• What is the nature of knowledge?
• Can machines think?
• How do experts differ from novices?
• Are there innate ideas?
• How did human intelligence evolve?
What is special about cognitive science at GU?
Focus on experiential learning through applied research experience
The two Core Courses of the Cognitive Science minor are designed as a year-long experiential learning sequence that combines interdisciplinary theory in the fall with hands-on research immersion in the spring. Students begin with the foundational theory course (ICOS 2201), then spend time in faculty laboratories (ICOS 2950)—reading about, discussing, experiencing, and assisting the research projects underway at Georgetown. In addition, Cognitive Science minors may choose to conduct a senior thesis in Cognitive Science, working with a faculty member who agrees to supervise the research.
Our program’s faculty
Faculty from the Main Campus, the Medical Center, and the Law Center are involved in the Cognitive Science minor. Our program involves faculty from several Main Campus departments (including Biology, Computer Science, Linguistics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, and Psychology) and from the Medical Center (including Neurology, Neuroscience, Pediatrics, Pharmacology, and Psychiatry). We also maintain close ties with Georgetown’s Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience (IPN), a Ph.D. program based in the Medical Center. Several of our faculty members are actively involved in research on language acquisition. We help students take advantage of the exciting research being conducted on the three campuses at the University.
Team-taught Core Courses
Both of our Core Courses are team-taught and interdisciplinary, allowing students to meet professors and students from a range of departments. This offers the opportunity to experience an unusually broad range of perspectives and disciplines, all within a single course. For this reason, our Core Courses can help students choose a major during their first year at Georgetown or broaden their horizons in their later years.
Focus on connecting graduate and undergraduate students
We believe that undergraduate and graduate students benefit and learn from each other, and our program works to facilitate such encounters. For example, we offer a course entitled Drugs, the Brain, and Behavior, which was created by a group of Ph.D. students from GU’s Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience (IPN). Undergraduates who take the course have the opportunity to learn about brain disorders from advanced Ph.D. students conducting dissertation research on these topics. As a result, our undergraduates gain insight into neuroscience from the perspective of eager young scientists. We also have a growing list of GU graduate students who are eager to act as advisors, mentors, or contact people for our undergraduates as they consider their career next steps.
Bridging the sciences and humanities
Cognitive science is a scientific enterprise, drawing heavily from fields like psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and computer science, but it also maintains deep and longstanding ties to the humanities—especially philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. Our minor and its courses are intentionally designed to bridge these diverse disciplines, helping students engage both the empirical methods and theoretical underpinnings of the sciences and the conceptual frameworks of the humanities to gain a more holistic understanding of the mind.
Enhancing a premed program
Our minor works well for pre-med students. Many of the science courses pre-meds take can be counted toward the minor. Our minor offers a venue for bringing these various disciplines together, as well as an opportunity to meet a group of students from several majors, all of whom are interested in the mind and human cognition.