Courses of Study 2024-2025

Nov 21, 2024

Courses of Study 2024-2025

Design and Environmental Analysis

Faculty
Student Policies
DEA Major
DEA Honors Program
Academic Advising

Design and Environmental Analysis (DEA) major combines innovative design thinking with insightful design research to understand how the built environment impacts our daily lives. Through multi-disciplinary training in human-centered design, environmental psychology, ergonomics, and facility strategy and management, we tackle problems from a systems view - people, process and place - to create strategic, sustainable healthy futures by design.

The program offers an integrative, flexible curriculum that is student-centric. In addition to the Human Ecology credits, undergraduate students complete a total of 65 DEA credits; 34 credits in common core foundation courses and then choose nine courses, three of which must be studios to build expertise within a focus area utilizing thematic courses within the major, as well as electives from the broad course offerings within Human Ecology and at Cornell. The undergraduate curriculum thematic courses are organized around the following three primary themes: Design, Innovation & Strategy, Sustainable Futures, and Health & Well-Being. Students can also elect to complete a minor, honor’s thesis, or pursue an off-campus study experience.

Diverse faculty backgrounds and teaching approaches help students to develop multidisciplinary problem-solving and creative abilities, aesthetic judgment, and analytical thinking. Students explore innovative concepts for the design and management of physical environments of varying scales through courses, studios, laboratories, shop, field experience, and applied research. Examples of student class projects and faculty work are frequently on display in the MVR gallery. Our dLibrary includes books, journals, and materials collections for students to use as resources for their course work and research.

Faculty

Y. Gowayed, Chair (HEB T57); N. Ahmadi, L. Beaman, J. Elliott, G. Evans, R. Gilmore, K. Green, Y. Hua, S. Kalantari, H. Kao, R. Leitao, J. Loebach, M. Shepley, N. Wells, J. Yoon, S. Yoon, R. Zadeh

Student Policies

The DEA student policies apply specifically to undergraduate students enrolled in the Design and Environmental Analysis major. DEA majors must also adhere to all Cornell University and College of Human Ecology (CHE) policies and requirements.

DEA Honors Program:

The honors program, which leads to a B.S. degree with honors in Design and Environmental Analysis, gives official recognition to undergraduate students who have demonstrated excellence in their academic work and their capacity for independent research. In addition to fulfilling the requirements for their major, students in the honors program prepare and orally defend an honors thesis. Honors students work with a research mentor in preparing for their thesis. Interested students should obtain a DEA Honors Program application form online. For more information, students should visit the DEA honors website or contact the DEA Honors Representative, Dr. Rana Zadeh.

Academic Advising:

By the beginning of their first semester, all DEA majors are assigned a faculty advisor by the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Consultation with faculty advisors about future goals, graduation requirements, sequences of courses, and electives inside or outside the college helps students develop their academic programs. Students are free to request change of advisors. Although advisors should be consulted about students’ schedules during course enrollment each semester, it is the student’s responsibility to keep track of his or her courses and to make sure that they make good progress towards graduation requirements for their major and college.

DEA Major

In addition to college requirements , students in the DEA Major must complete specific requirements listed here.

The requirements listed below pertain to all students matriculating in August 2024 and January 2025.

DEA Core Courses

Take all of the following:

DEA 1101 - Visual Literacy and Design Studio

DEA 1110 - Making a Difference by Design

DEA 1140 - Principles of Design Computing

DEA 1150 - Design Graphics and Visualization

DEA 1501 - Introduction to Environmental Psychology - Writing in the Major

DEA 2025 - Impactful Graphics: Visual Communication for Social Impact

DEA 2510 - History of Design Futures

DEA 2730 - Human Centered Design Methods

DEA 4040 - Professional Practices and Ethics

DEA 4050 - Design Portfolio and Communication

DEA 4590 - Problem-Seeking through Programming

FSAD Requirement

Students who applied to major in DEA are required to take one 1000-level FSAD course in the first year. They may choose from the below courses. Note: If student enrolls in FSAD 1350 , this will count towards the Natural Science II requirement.

FSAD 1250 - Fashion, Art and Design Thinking

FSAD 1350 - Fibers, Fabrics, and Finishes

DEA Thematic Courses

Choose nine courses from the list below, one course from each thematic area is required. Letter grade only. Students must take at least one studio at the 2000-level, 3000-level, and 4000-level. Students may not take more than 2 studios in one semester, this includes both DEA and non-DEA studios. DEA 4990 can count towards one Thematic area.

Design Innovation & Strategy

DEA 2200 - Art and Science: Sustainability, Multiculturalism and Transdisciplinarity (formerly DEA 1200)

DEA 2201 - Magnifying Small Spaces Studio

DEA 2203 - StudioSHIFT

DEA 2750 - Lighting Design: Light InForming Space

DEA 3050 - Construction Documentation: In a BIM Environment

DEA 3301 - Design UX with Technology Studio

DEA 3302 - Sustainable Consumerism: The New Typologies Studio

DEA 3306 - Generative Design Studio

DEA 3530 - Planning and Managing the Workplace: Evidence-Based Design and Organizational Ecology

DEA 4402 - Disruptive Design: Competitions Studio DEA 4500 - Policy Meets Design: High-Impact Facilities of the 21st Century

DEA 4990 - Senior Honors Thesis

DEA 5210 - Interaction Design Studio

DEA 5520 - Virtual Experience of Designed Environments

DEA 5540 - Workplace Strategy Studio

Sustainable Futures

DEA 2020 - Introduction to Sustainable Design

DEA 2422 - Making Green: Sustainable Product Design Studio

DEA 3030 - Materials for Design and Sustainability

DEA 3302 - Sustainable Consumerism: The New Typologies Studio

DEA 3500 - The Ambient Environment

DEA 4025 - Design for Change: Imagining Decolonial Futures

DEA 4220 - Ecological Literacy and Design

DEA 4401 - Adaptive Reuse Studio: Recycling the Built Environment

Health & Well-Being

DEA 2700 - Healthy Places: Design, Planning and Public Health

DEA 3308 - Positive Design Studio

DEA 3510 - Human Factors and Inclusive Design

DEA 4700 - Applied Ergonomic Methods

DEA 5304 - Design Accountability: Evaluation of the Physical Environment

DEA 5305 - Health and Healing Studio

DEA 5500 - Designing for Material Affect

DEA 5700 - Designing Age Friendly Environments

DEA Research Methods

Choose one of the following courses:
DEA 3550 - Research Methods in Human-Environment Relations
ILROB 4710 - Social Science Research Methods
PUBPOL 3120 - Research Design, Practice, and Policy

Psychology Requirement

Psychology Requirement (3 credits)

This fulfills the college distribution social sciences requirement.

Choose one of the following courses:

HD 1130 - Introduction to Human Development

PSYCH 1101 - Introduction to Psychology

AP Psychology is not accepted.

Introductory Microeconomics

Introductory Economics (3 credits)

This fulfills the college distribution social sciences requirement.

ECON 1110 - Introductory Microeconomics

AP Microeconomics is not accepted.

Statistics

Statistics (4 credits)

This fulfills the college distribution quantitative and analytical courses requirement.
Must be taken at Cornell, AP Statistics is not accepted
Choose one of the following courses:
PUBPOL 2100 - Introduction to Statistics
AEM 2100 - Introductory Statistics
ILRST 2100 - Introductory Statistics and Data Science /STSCI 2100 - Introductory Statistics and Data Science
PSYCH 2500 - Statistics and Research Design

Natural Science I and II

Natural Science I (3-4 credits)

This fulfills the college distribution natural sciences requirement.

One of the following:

Biology

BIOG 1140 - Foundations of Biology
BIOG 1440 - Introductory Biology: Comparative Physiology or BIOG 1445 - Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, Individualized Instruction
BIOMG 1350 - Introductory Biology: Cell and Developmental Biology
BIOEE 1610 - Introductory Biology: Ecology and the Environment
AP Biology score of 5

Chemistry

CHEM 1560 - Introduction to General Chemistry or CHEM 2070 - General Chemistry I
CHEM 2080 - General Chemistry II
AP Chemistry score of 5

Physics

PHYS 1101 - General Physics I or PHYS 2207 - Fundamentals of Physics I
PHYS 1102 - General Physics II or PHYS 2208 - Fundamentals of Physics II
AP Physics score of 5

Note: If AP isn’t used to satisfy the requirement, then the course must be taken at Cornell.
Note: No lab is required.

Natural Science II (3-4 credits)

Choose any 3 credit course with a PBS, BIO-AS, PHS-AS, BIOLS-AG, or BIONLS-AG Course Distribution.

Note: No AP credit allowed, course must be taken at Cornell.

DEA Additional Distribution Coursework

Additional Distribution Coursework (6 credits)

Any course with the Course Distribution PBS, ALC-AS, ETM-AS, HST-AS, SCD-AS, SSC-AS, SDS-AS, SMR-AS, BIOLS-AG, BIONLS-AG, SBA, KCM, MQR, LA, CA, or HA. Language courses may count here.