BS in Computational Social Science

The Computational Social Science (CSS) major educates students to build, compute, and improve theoretically-informed models of social processes, bridging domain and technical expertise. This major will prepare students to understand, engage with, and innovatively solve evolving, complex multi-scale societal challenges such as climate change, transnational political violence, cybersecurity and privacy, social polarization, labor economics, and inequality. This major will draw on and enhance Pitt's strength in both social science theory, broadly construed, as well as computing, informatics, and networked systems. Students will gain an understanding of modern computational tools and resources and social, political, and economic concepts from core social science classes.

Major Requirements

The CSS major is 52/53 credits and comprises of different categories of requirements. The first category is a required Mathematics class: MATH 0220: Calculus and Analytic Geometry 1. This class needs to be completed with a C or better grade in order to declare the major. All other required classes should also be completed with a C or better grade. The different categories and the classes for the major are as follows:

Foundational Classes

The foundational courses introduce students to enduring puzzles in social science research, emerging themes of computational social science, and the approaches that social scientists and information & network scientists use to solve problems. This section consists of eight required courses that will provide foundations of subject matter knowledge and the basic computational tools that are relevant to social scientific theories and empirics.

1. Required Introduction to CSS Class

PS 0702: Introduction to Computational Social Science

2. One Introduction to Social Science Class (choose 1 class)

PS 0200: American Politics
PS 0300: Comparative Politics
PS 0500: International Relations

3. Four Classes Introducing Computational Approaches and Basic Tools

Two required classes

Pick any two classes from

4. One Social Science Research Design

PS 0700: Research Methods in Political Science

5. One Class Modeling Social Interactions and Motivations

PS 1250: Games, Politics, and Strategy OR
PS 1514: Political Strategy International Relations

Ethics and Computational Social Science

This section of the major will expose students to critical debates on the ethics of governance, computing, and technological change. Issues covered will include tradeoffs between privacy/security and censorship/freedom, as well as topics related to surveillance, propaganda, cyber-security, and regulation. The goal is to expose students to both the moral and social consequences of technology at a conceptual level, and the specific technical implementations that cause potential social problems (e.g., packet-sniffing) and could potentially expand the space for solutions (e.g., differential privacy).

Select two courses from the following:

CMPINF 1205: Comparative Digital Privacies
CS 0590: Social Implications of Computing Technology
INFSCI 1600: Security and Privacy
PS 1693: Political Theory and Future Analysis
INFSCI 1049: Introduction to Information Security
PS 1675: Politics of Human Rights

Intermediate Techniques Applied to Social Science Content

The third set of requirements will empower students to use computational tools to explore enduring social science puzzles and theories at scale. These paths are not meant to be formal areas of concentration, but options to gain competence in more focused areas. For example, some students might be interested in applying data mining techniques to problems in campaigns in American politics. Other students might want to focus on cyber-security and international relations. The course sets in computational techniques, domains, and analytics are organized to broaden interest in the major. Together, these courses allow our students to earn an evolved understanding of how computing and digital tools can be used in government, businesses, and NGOs.

Two Computational Skills Classes

These classes specifically focus on relevant computational skills, including data mining, the web, visualizations, social computing, and advanced security and privacy.

Select two of the following courses to satisfy this subset:

INFSCI 1440 - SOCIAL COMPUTING
INFSCI 1520 - INFORMATION VISUALIZATION
INFSCI 1530 - DATA MINING
INFSCI 1550 - SPATIAL INFORMATION
INFSCI 1570 - NETWORK AND WEB DATA TECHNOLOGIES
INFSCI 1620 - ADVANCED SECURITY AND PRIVACY

Two Domain Specialization Classes

Students will delve deeper into their domain specialization with two classes in that area. One class should pair with the theme chosen for the student’s Introductory Social Science Class (under Foundational Classes). Students then chose another substantive class that can be outside the previous theme. Select two domain specializations classes from the themes below. Although only a few classes are listed for each theme, more are options available to students. Students should refer to the major’s academic advisement (degree progress) report for a complete list of course options.

American Politics: Some courses offered within the 1200-range are approved domain specialization courses to pair with PS 0200.

Comparative Politics: Some courses offered within the 1300-range are approved domain specialization courses to pair with PS 0300.

International Relations: Some courses offered within the 1500-range are approved domain specialization courses to pair with PS 0500.

One Integrated Analytics Content Class

The final section in this requirement will marry a deep analytical component, such as predictive analytics, causal inference, game theory, data visualization, and other topics with complicated social problems such as inequality, trade, climate change, political violence, or polarization. The class will focus on integrating computational tools into the measurement of core social science concepts, including democracy, human rights, happiness, and peace. There will be a focus on using text and images as data.

Select one of the courses from PS 1291-1299, PS 1391-1399, PS 1591-1599, PS 1691-1699 or PS 1702 as detailed here.

Application Development Capstone

The major culminates in the production of a research project that uses computational tools to create a) an online, interactive data visualization, b) a replicable research report that uses unstructured data or c) a module/library. In all cases, the project will engage with, or help to resolve, an important social problem. This project can be created through independent or directed research, or in one of the classes listed below. All students will present their projects as digital posters to faculty, alumni, and potential employers from around the Pittsburgh area at an end-of-the-year event.

Select one of the following courses:

INFSCI 1700 - DATA-DRIVEN COMMUNICATION
INFSCI 1710 - DIRECTED RESEARCH
INFSCI 1730 - INDEPENDENT STUDY
INFSCI 1740 - TEAM-BASED CAPSTONE PROJECT
INFSCI 1720 - INTERNSHIP
PS 1900 - INTERNSHIP
PS 1901 - INDEPENDENT STUDY
PS 1903 - DIRECTED RESEARCH

Honors

To receive the honors designation within the major upon graduation, a 3.7 GPA is required across all major classes and a 3.5 Cumulative GPA overall.