Note: This course listing is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a contract between CIEE and any applicant, student, institution, or other party. The courses, as described, may be subject to change as a result of ongoing curricular revisions, assignment of lecturers and teaching staff, and program development. Courses may be cancelled due to insufficient enrollment.
CIEE Study Center Syllabi
To view the most recent syllabi for courses taught by CIEE at our Study Centers, visit our syllabi site.
Required CIEE Courses
Future Cities Design Studio
Globalization has had a profound impact on the shape and dynamics of cities. This impact can be felt at the historic urban centers and on agricultural peripheries alike. While recognizable city centers might remain, in many cases they are now supplemented with multiple centers, hubs and nodes. Typically, these centers are drawn together in a network of communication infrastructures (rail, road, air, internet) to form complex polycentric urban systems that extend far into once rural hinterlands. The scale, reach and networked quality of these urban configurations have generated both positive and negative urban experiences at the local, regional and global levels.
Using Prague as a laboratory, the studio will be used to examine an illuminating hypothesis: in the future, cities will grow to be self-sufficient in their critical necessities through massive public works and infrastructural support.
This studio will examine this emergent urban condition by focusing on those sites that are seen to concentrate spatial, economic, social and cultural experiences to positive effect. It is interested in the new kinds of intensity of urban experience that are stimulated by the interactions of local sites (topographically) and trans-local networks (topologically). It will pay particular attention to the catalytic circumstances or specific conditions of possibility that give rise to new, productive and sustainable forms of urban experience. In doing so, the studio will focus on two significant urban conditions: at the neighborhood scale it examines specific building typology in the urban fabric or, at the regional scale, will focus on large infrastructure such as an airport as the driver of a particular kind of urbanization in specific sites in Barcelona, Berlin and Prague.
Recommended credit: 6 semester/9 quarter hours.
Future Cities Seminar
Global Challenges to the 21st Century City: Design and the Promise of Sustainability
Three momentous changes, occurring only within the last decade, are having a lasting effect on our planet: 1. More people now live in cities than in the countryside, an unprecedented occasion in human history; 2. There is now a consensus that human activity is a powerful, adverse contributor to climate change; 3. A new revolution is underway—replacing the previous model created by the Industrial Revolution—that is based on a search for alternative, renewable energy generation and sustainable living. The intention of this course is to research the myriad consequences of these radical changes to the city, and explore how architectural and urban design is adapting to address these changes.
The course will investigate a series of interrelated themes of fundamental importance to the health of cities: political will and political failure in the determination of urban policy; the role of the automobile in the propagation of suburban sprawl; demographic challenges (shrinking versus expanding cities); the enduring influence of specific modern urban movements (Garden City, modernism, postmodernism, “Critical Reconstruction,” “New Urbanism”); contrasting patterns of racism, poverty, and immigration; the emergence of a "planet of slums;" security in an age of war, chronic criminality and terrorism; the threat of disease and epidemics. Global warming and environmental degradation will be a central concern. The accelerated consumption of oil and energy, the unregulated creation and dispersion of pollution, the alarming increase of CO2 emissions, and the consequent alterations to the earth's climatic equilibrium are no longer phenomena that can be ignored by architects and urban planners.
Current building projects offer exciting solutions for the use of recycled energy, efficient lighting, natural materials, converted infrastructure, and ecological/political coordination, and we will visit several during scheduled field trips. The resulting insights into strategies for creating livable, socially responsible urban environments will be valuable both to students of architecture and those outside the discipline. For indeed, cities have always reflected the combined efforts of human civilization and will continue to require interdisciplinary teamwork to survive and flourish.
Recommended credit: 3 semester/4.5 quarter hours.
Science, Engineering and Technology Workshops
In a series of hands-on workshops, the students will learn the processes of synthetic biology, smart materials and nanotechnology, growing materials, scripting and computational modeling for controlled growth, and many more. The workshops will be developed in collaboration with faculty and innovators in each city.
- Digital Fabrication
In design, architecture and many other disciplines, Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) fabrication equipment has given designers unprecedented means for executing formerly challenging projects directly from the computer. By surpassing the limitations imposed by manufacturing systems based on standardization, the impact of these technologies has fundamentally challenged the paradigm of production, thus opening a wide field of research and experimentation practices and unimaginable design opportunities. In this new context, the workshop will incorporate these technologies as part of its academic agenda and work environment with a Fab-Lab at IAAC that is equipped with several large scale CNC machines (laser cutters, CNC Milling Machines, 3D printers, etc) and spaces for prototyping in a large industrial warehouse setting.
- Soft Infrastructure
This workshop will explore soft infrastructure for mitigating natural hazards based on the sophisticated understanding and mimicry of such natural systems. We will test the possibility of creating a porous boundary where water meets land to dampen powerful storm currents as well as encourage the development of new estuarial habitats. This water infrastructure consists of estuarine canal outlets to tidal strait and water filtration sponges enabling hydrology of wetlands for plant and organism growth.
- Parametric Design
The conceptual and technical sphere of parametric design will be introduced in this workshop by learning systemic processes capable of reacting to various ecologic factors. We will focus on parametric design logic, computational geometry, modeling techniques, and environmental influencers to create radical design answers. The workshop will focus on formal synthesis based on a combination of scientific rigor and artistic expressionism. A Series of programs will offer the possibility to explore parametric and computational design with extraordinary flexibility. The workshop will reexamine the role of parametric design and demand judgment rather than rely purely on calculus. The use of parametric computation will be less interested in aesthetics than in solutions—a series of fixes that happen fast and smart.
- Advanced Environmental Digital Design
Workshop focused on parametric tools (such as grasshopper and ecotect) with the help of plug ins (such as Geko or Galapagos) for the development of parametric geometries controlled by environmental parameters.
- Urban Sensing
Urban Data Workshop focused on the development of digital tools and urban applications based on the real time data captured for enhancing citizen participation with the goal of a more optimized and efficient inhabitation of our cities and neighborhoods; Digital Fabrication and Atomization in Construction Workshop based on rapid prototyping and robotic manufacturing for new construction techniques and advanced materials experimentation.
CIEE Elective Courses
Art and Architecture of Prague
This course provides a survey of art and architecture, especially housing styles, which have influenced the development of Prague and other major European cities from the Middle Ages through the 20th century. Excursions to art galleries and related architectural monuments are combined with classroom lectures.
Collective Identity in a Totalitarian Regime
This course examines the totalitarian oppression from the point of view of ordinary citizens in socialist Czechoslovakia. It focuses on the construction of collective mentality through everyday official/public and unofficial/private activities, including mass parades, ceremonies and performances, work relations, children’s education, housing schemes, or collective vacationing. The goal is to demonstrate the consequences of life in an oppressive regime: suppression of fundamental forms of civic interaction, such as independent public communication, and distortion of moral and behavioral norms.
Recommended credit 3 semester/2.5 quarter hours.
European Environmental Studies
This course examines the relationship between human society and the natural environment with a specific focus on the Czech landscape as a place for human-nature interaction. In addition the course explores European integration from an environmental perspective, the ecological footprint and problem of climate change, and environmental ethics in contemporary European society.
Media Impact in Central Europe: Past and Present
This course examines the role and impact of international and domestic media on political developments in Central Europe, examining the way of doing journalism at Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and comparing it to the approaches of other media companies. The course looks at journalism, technology, and logistics used by RFE/RL during the Cold War, and at its current ways of providing information to areas of the world where the press is restricted or tightly controlled. Journalists from RFE/RL and other media are frequent guest speakers. A key aspect of the course is the focus on coverage of religious, ethnic, and other emotionally sensitive issues, and students gain special insights into coverage of current events. They learn about the dynamics of social tensions in transitional and post-communist societies, and how the media is contributing to shaping the history of countries faced with their legacy and with the new challenges of EU membership.
Recommended credit 3 semester/4.5 quarter hours.
Modern Czech Art: Czech Modern and Contemporary Art and Architecture
Combining classroom lectures with gallery visits, this course acquaints students with 20th century art movements and tendencies. Based upon the analysis of the oeuvre of key Czech artists and various topics, ranging from the expressions of Czech national identity in the finde-siecle art to the art produced under the Communist regime, the course tackles the social and political development of the Central European region.
Seminar on Living and Learning in Prague
The CIEE Seminar on Living and Learning in Prague is designed to improve students’ intercultural communication and competence while studying abroad by considering how the Czechs are different from and similar to themselves and others. The course offers opportunities, both in an outside the classroom, to develop insights and the skills necessary to interact effectively and appropriately, and to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the cultural richness of the Czech Republic.
Contact hours: 25. Recommended credit: 2 semester/3 quarter hours.
CIEE Language Courses
Beginning Czech Language, I
Beginning Czech Language, II (Academic Year students in spring semester)
Beginning Czech Language, Fast Track
Intermediate Czech Language, I
Intermediate Czech Language, II (Academic Year students in spring semester)
Advanced Czech Language, I
These courses provide students with the basic skills needed to communicate on a daily basis, including grammar, conversation, listening, and reading comprehension. During the first two weeks, students study Czech language five hours each day. Students then continue language study with classes two days per week. Students are placed into classes based on language background.
Contact hours: 115. Recommended credit: 4 semester/6 quarter hours.
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