The one-semester Beyond Boundaries interdisciplinary courses cross not just departments in Arts & Sciences, but the entire university.
They break down barriers between disciplines for a more holistic experience, while still offering what all our First-Year Programs provide: exposure to new concepts and people; opportunities to learn from some of the world's leading scholars across a spectrum of disciplines; and, well, fun. Boundaries courses help talented, self-initiated, and self-motivated students become creative problem solvers and insightful scholars who are prepared to pursue their own broad interdisciplinary interests. These courses require collaboration across academic disciplines and perspectives, drawing on the strength and interconnectedness of the university’s seven schools.
Courses Offered Fall 2026
BEYOND BOUNDARIES 1002 – Beyond Boundaries: The Business of Elections (Professors Steve Malter & Andrew Reeves)
This course will focus on understanding the primary and general elections, particularly the 2026 mid-term election through a multi-disciplinary approach, primarily political science and business. Campaigns are start-ups that rely on strategy, branding, influencing consumers (voters), financing and other concepts to achieve the elections of their candidate. At the same time, American politics is highly polarized with voters who are increasingly hostile to listening to the other side. Given this context, how does a campaign succeed as an entrepreneurial venture? The course will allow students to compare and contrast how different candidate’s policies/platforms may impact different constituencies/sectors of the business/labor world as well as the economy and how the media portrays them and what role they will play in the general election.
BEYOND BOUNDARIES 1003 – Beyond Boundaries: When I’m 64: Preparing Ourselves and Society for a Good Long Life (Professors Nancy Morrow-Howell, Brian Carpenter, & Susy Stark)
Whether you know it or not, you’re living in the midst of a revolution – a revolution that is going to change your personal and professional lives. Although old age may seem a long way off, you’ll likely live to age 80 or beyond, with a 50% chance of seeing your 100th birthday. The demographic revolution you’re going to live through will change the health care you receive, the house you live in, the car you drive, the jobs you do, and the relationships you have. This class will give you a competitive edge in understanding how you can harness what’s happening to shape your career and lifestyle. In class you’ll be introduced to leaders and ideas from many fields – medicine, engineering, architecture, public health, social work, law, business, art, and psychology – focused on the issues of our aging society. There will also be opportunities to tailor the class to your interests through events on and off campus, including movies, lectures, performances, field trips, and community projects. Each week, we’ll gather for lectures and also break into small groups for discussion. This course will set you on a path to lead the aging revolution and transform the society of tomorrow.
BEYOND BOUNDARIES 1004 – Beyond Boundaries: Beyond Sustainability: Planet, People, Prosperity (Professors Ian Trivers & Froggi VanRiper)
Building a sustainable future requires informed critical thinkers who can collaborate across disciplines to redesign cities, transportation, agriculture, conservation, decarbonized energy grids, manufacturing, and more. This team-taught course integrates principles from engineering, policy, design, economics, and natural and social science necessary to build a more sustainable world. Through simulations, guest speakers, group workshops, and discussions, students develop the analytical and problem-solving skills needed to evaluate and critique solutions for “planet, people, and prosperity”. This course empowers students with the interdisciplinary knowledge and communication tools needed to become sustainability leaders in their communities and careers.
BEYOND BOUNDARIES 1005 – Beyond Boundaries: The Endgame of Entrepreneurship: Leveraging Capitalism for Good (Professors II Luscri & Joe Steensma)
Historically, profit has been a key driver of human behavior. In this class, students will learn to take advantage of the profit-seeking motive of capitalism while also learning from mistakes and unintended consequences capitalism has caused throughout history. Students will apply these learnings toward profit-seeking solutions for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals — which are global challenges that call us to work together with boldness and urgency. We will explore how skills from entrepreneurship and venture creation can be used to improve water, climate, education and gender equality globally and here in St. Louis. In interdisciplinary teams, students will learn how to define a problem; listen to customers, competitors and collaborators; create value; measure impact; and communicate their vision. Bold entrepreneurial spirit and skills learned in this class will guide students in their further WashU studies and beyond.
BEYOND BOUNDARIES 1009 – Beyond Boundaries: The Art of Medicine (Professors Rebecca Messbarger & Patricia Olynyk)
This interdisciplinary, cross-school course illuminates the crucial intersection of the history and practice of medicine, and the visual culture of the body and its myriad representations. The encounter between medicine and art has been cooperative, leading to numerous innovations such as the microscope and genetic sequencing, and fiercely antagonistic, as witnessed during the HIV AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and in our current Covid Era. Together with distinguished guest speakers–artists, humanists, and medical professionals–we will break down simplistic distinctions between the cultures of art and medicine and explore past and present bodily representations of health, illness, race, gender, disability, experimental surgeries, and diverse medical cultures.
The course will begin with historical artworks, illustrations, and écorchés that have both represented and advanced the history of medicine and the history of art equally, and later examine artworks, which lay bare contemporaneous social, political, and ethical dimensions of wellness, treatment and care, core principles embedded in medicine and select artistic practices. Evolving technologies and their impact on both fields will also be interrogated, using case studies that include: Ercole Lelli’s ecorchés from the University of Bologna, Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp , Kader Attia’s Repair , Simone Leigh’s Free People ’s Medical Clinic, and Stelarc’s Ear on Arm. The class will meet each week, in-person, for both lectures and small group discussions. In their final project at the intersection of art and medicine, students will delve creatively into a topic in which they are particularly interested. Faculty from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts and the School of Arts and Sciences will collaborate with visiting artists, curators, and faculty from biomedical ethics, the Medical School, and the Institute of Public Health. There are no prerequisites or co-requisites for this course; it is open to all first-year students regardless of prior background.
BEYOND BOUNDARIES 1015 – Beyond Boundaries: Earth’s Future: Causes and Consequences of Global Climate Change (Professors T.R. Kidder)
This course examines 1) the physical basis for climate change; 2) how climates are changing and how we know and assess that climates are changing; and 3) the effects of climate change on natural and human systems. The course is team-taught and will involve participation by scholars across the university with expertise in specific subjects. This is a broad introductory course for first-year students, and it presumes no special subject matter knowledge on the part of the student. This course is only offered for credit to first year (non-transfer) students only. Climate change is one of the most important issues of our time. The ten warmest years on record have all occurred within the last decade. While there is much still to learn, the science is largely settled; consequently, major debates on the subject emphasize mitigating and adapting to the effects of human-driven climate change.