Life & Death in the USA: Medicine and Disease in Social Context
COURSE CONTENT
Q: I've never taken a Sociology course before; will this be a good fit for me?
A: Yes. If you have any interest in the relationship between health and society, the origins of health, and the role of medical care, it will be a terrific fit. In past years, students from diverse concentrations, such as economics, OEB, MCB, sociology, statistics, psychology, government, anthropology, applied math, philosophy, biology, chemistry, physics, history of science, history, and many other concentrations at Harvard have enrolled in the class.
Q: I'm interested in public health; will this be a good fit for me?
A: Yes. The readings span the medical, public health, and social science literatures, and they reflect both qualitative and quantitative approaches. In many ways, this course serves as an introduction to the field of public health. The syllabus for the most current year of the course is here.
Q: Is Soc 190 a Gen Ed class?
A: Yes. Soc 190 has been approved for credit in "United States in the World."
Q: Does the class count for credit towards a Health Policy Certificate or a secondary concentration in that field?
A: Yes. It also may count towards secondary concentrations in other fields.
Q: I understand that the class will be taught somewhat differently in 2012 than in prior years, is that right?
A: Yes. The class has been very well received by students for many years, and much of what students like about the class will remain unchanged – including the types of readings and the entertaining lectures that Dr. Christakis offers. But we are going to try to make the class even more stimulating and enjoyable, if we can.
In 2011, Dr. Christakis tried a couple of innovations to make better use of the lecture time and increase student engagement with the material. These innovations are modeled in part on processes advocated by Professor Eric Mazur (in the Physics Department); and they are prompted by the recognition that teaching should change as technology changes and as new research emerges regarding adult learning. [For some more details, see E. Mazur, Peer Instruction, Prentice-Hall, 1997; and D. Bruff, Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments, Jossey-Bass, 2009.]
Briefly, it is fair to ask what the objectives of lectures in a large class are. On the one hand, lectures are a form of live entertainment, and there is an authenticity to being in a class and to watching someone lecture in real time that helps in the transfer of information. Plus, having to get out of bed and go to lecture concentrates the mind (though perhaps not as much as the prospect of being hanged). And thinking about the material while taking notes facilitates learning for many people. Dr. Christakis enjoys giving lectures (and, actually, he enjoys listening to lectures given by others).
On the other hand, in some cases, lectures can amount to nothing more than the 'transfer of the professor's lecture notes to the student's notebook, without going through the minds of either.' Plus, given new technologies such as cell phones and laptops, it is very tempting to students to come to class and spend time checking their Facebook pages or emailing their friends – which seems a waste of time for them, and a distraction to their neighbors.
Hence, the challenge is to make good use of scarce lecture time and to keep the benefits of lecture, while supplementing the experience in ways that exploit new technologies and make it more stimulating and instructive.
For example, during class, Dr. Christakis will employ two techniques to enhance information transfer from him to the students and among the students themselves. One involves asking students conceptual questions during lecture and encouraging them to discuss their answers with their neighbors – a form of "peer instruction" that most students find both enjoyable and compelling. Second, this year, we will employ some new software in class that can be used to conduct and demonstrate social science experiments in real time.
You can watch the peer instruction technique, as applied at Harvard, in this brief, two minute video, if you are curious.
Q: Do many pre-meds take the class?
A: Perhaps 20-25% of the students taking the class are pre-meds.
Q: Do I need any statistical or quantitative background for this class?
A: No. We'll be considering how social scientists, epidemiologists, public health experts, and doctors use theory to understand health outcomes and how they make "causal inferences" based on observational or experimental data; however, students are not expected to have in-depth knowledge of social science methods or statistics.
Q: There was an equation in one of the slides and this scared me. I know you're going to pull something sneaky and ask me to calculate this for the midterms or final.
A: No. We absolutely will not ask you to calculate Gini coefficients, Yitzhaki inequality measures, or age-adjusted mortality for the midterms or final. We do, however, want you to understand the intuition behind these kinds of equations and why it might be useful for public health reasons to try and calculate things like this.
Q: Will the slides from the lectures be available online?
A: Yes. We'll periodically distribute the slides in pdf form online. Probably, the slides will be uploaded a few days after each lecture, but possibly we will upload them in advance. Moreover, the lectures are podcast; you can download the audio files here, or subscribe in iTunes.
Q: Will Dr. Christakis discuss social networks in this class, and will this topic be covered too much or too little?
A: It will be just right.
Q: How much reading is there for the class?
A: Readings from books and articles average about 55 pages per session (range 15-200), or 110 pages per week. It is our sense that this is not an excessive amount of reading; that this amount is typical of other undergraduate classes; and that the amount of time required (based on past CUE surveys) is not unreasonable. Plus, we hope the carefully chosen and diverse readings will engage your interest and prompt deep understanding of the topics at hand. We've got everything from sex to robots in the readings.
Q: Does Dr. Christakis really mean it when he says to come to office hours?
A: Yes. Dr. Christakis is very engaged at office hours (Wednesdays, 4:15-6:45 pm, at WJH 570, during the spring semester). You can make an appointment or drop in. Oftentimes, a conversation gets going among a bunch of students who have dropped by. The best thing you can do to help Dr. Christakis get to know you and remember your name is to come to office hours.
LOGISTICS AND GRADING
Q: Can I take this course P/F?
A: Yes. We used to not allow the P/F option in the class, but this year we do.
Q: I'm a senior, and will be finishing my thesis this term, but it's due around the time of one of the Soc 190 midterms. Can I have an extension?
A: No, sorry. We recognize that a number of concentrations have theses due just before or just after our midterms. Our sense is that experienced seniors are in a position to take the midterms and also complete their theses.
Q: The course looks interesting, but I don't really have room in my schedule; can I audit?
A: Only if space allows, and with permission of the instructor; please defer to those around you who are taking it for a requirement.
Q: What is the historical grade distribution?
A: Overall, over the past few years, about 15% of students get an A, 25% get an A-, 25% get a B+, 25% get a B, 5% get a B-, and 5% get a C-range grade.
Q: Are there ABL (activity based learning) sections in this course?
A: No. This has been done in some prior years, but not at present.
Q: This is a large class with a lot of sections. Are students in other sections being graded the same as me?
A: Previous students have been worried about consistency across TF's in grading. All TF's follow the same grading procedure for evaluating your contributions to section. We'll also take any remaining TF variation between sections into account on your final grade. Dr. Christakis is committed to personally reviewing all the grading and assigns final grades.
Q: How are students assigned to sections?
A: We do online sectioning the first week of class. Given all the moving parts, this is a difficult challenge, but we offer many section times and, in the end, virtually all students find a time that works well for them. The TF's for the class come from several departments and schools in the university, and we often are fortunate to have some TF's from the School of Public Health, the Medical School, and the Law School (though this varies from year to year).
Q: I'm a graduate student; can I take this class?
A: Yes. But graduate students taking Soc 190 for credit should see the instructor in order to arrange different requirements.
Q: Why is there no course-pack?
A: Given very low demand in prior years, there is no course packet available for purchase. Readings are available online via Hollis e-reserves, and also linked via the course website for you to print out. A course packet of readings is also on reserve at Lamont Library.
Q: I have a tutorial that overlaps with one of the weekly lectures. Can I catch up via the podcast? I promise to be diligent about keeping up with the work.
A: No. We're sorry, but this cannot be accommodated. In addition, the registrar's online system will not allow this conflict.
Q: I hear that there is a class party at the end of the year, and that, in the past, it involved swimming. Will this tradition continue now that the class is getting larger?
A: Yes, there will be a class party, and it will involve grilled meats and vegetables, as in the past. But since the Pforzheimer House Master's Residence does not have a pool (alas), it will no longer involve any swimming. For photographs of prior years' parties, held in Concord, Massachusetts, see here.