Integrated Studies
Program Overview
The Integrated Studies (IS) program at North Seattle College provides a rare opportunity to experience an innovative and dynamic learning environment not typical of most college courses. In integrated studies, you’ll explore a central theme from the perspective of different disciplines—two or more courses (8-15 credits) integrated into one learning experience.
The Associate of Arts degree at North requires a minimum of eight credits of integrated studies, but one course might not be enough. Students rave about these classes — IS could be the best learning experience you ever have!
How Integrated Studies Works
There are two formats for study. In linked courses, you take separate courses and draw comparisons between the subjects, while, in a coordinated course, teachers and students work together, exploring the same material.
The integrated studies model gives both students and faculty the chance to be actively involved in interdisciplinary study, integrating multiple perspectives and encouraging critical thinking and collaborative teaching and learning.
Coordinated and linked courses are rigorous but the atmosphere is non-competitive. Faculty and students generate the guidelines for the learning community they create, where every member plays a crucial role. This sustained attention to the learning community often invites more complex investigation of ideas and establishes an emotionally and intellectually safe environment that you’ll value.
The Seminar
One core activity of most coordinated courses is the seminar. Groups of students and instructors compare notes on intriguing articles or literature they are reading. They delve deeply into the subject matter, uncovering key connections among the course’s authors, ideas and texts.
In the seminar, everyone has a voice and everyone’s participation is cultivated to make the process work. Often those most hesitant to speak have the most to offer. Faculty serve as mentors, facilitators and resources in the seminar, but they are learners, too, fed by the seminar process and excited by it.
Start Now
Look at the IS offerings right away as you plan your studies. First-time students in IS often find the integrated studies learning model so satisfying that they choose these programs as often as possible during the rest of their career at North.
Courses
These Integrated Studies offerings will explore rich, intersecting ways of thinking about our lives and choices as individuals and societies. Working closely with one another, faculty and students create supportive learning communities to fuel and share their discoveries.