Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy

Courses

  • A Study of Sport in Society

    This course will examine the influence of sport on our contemporary global society. Exploring issues of race, class, education, coaching, gender, and the overall impact of the multi-billion dollar industry sport has become. The course will draw on the fields of sociology, psychology and history. Resources will include guest speakers, video, articles and texts including, […]

  • Asian American History & Literature

    Comprising around 6% of the U.S. population, Asian Americans are now the fastest-growing group in the United States. This course explores the long and diverse histories that Asian Americans have had in the United States. As an interdisciplinary introduction to Asian American history and literature, this course aims to help students appreciate Asian American history […]

  • Bioethics

    Humans’ capacity to alter their world at the biological level has risen to new heights in the past 50 years. With advanced technologies such as gene editing, cloning and stem cell research, medical procedures such as organ donation, abortion and IVF and biological manipulations of our food production systems and ecosystems in the news daily, […]

  • Design Thinking: Creative Workshop

    Design thinking is a problem-solving process that has led to many innovations in fields ranging from medical products, to engineering, to education, and even to children’s toys. Some of the key ideas within the method are designing with a human-centered approach, using prototypes to facilitate design decisions, and embracing design refinements based on feedback. Students […]

  • Green Umbrella Learning Lab (GULL)

    Seminal sustainability thinker and Oberlin College professor David Orr states that “big changes start in places small enough to be innovative and agile, but large enough to be important.” Exeter is just such a place and the Green Umbrella Learning Lab (GULL) is just such a space. This course affords students passionate about sustainability the […]

  • Human Rights

    “An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.” – Montesquieu In this course we will examine the origins of ideas about human rights as well as those documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that define contemporary understanding of those rights that assure freedom, dignity and respect for each human being. […]

  • Research Methods: SPARC

    This course teaches students how to use qualitative action research to investigate and improve culture, policy and practice. After learning the fundamentals of social scientific research, statistics and social theory, students design, complete and analyze a social scientific study on a campus issue related to identity and student well-being or experience. Each team chooses for […]

  • Science Health and Race in America

    This team-taught interdisciplinary course explores race and racism in science and medicine in the United States from the 20th century to today via biological and historical lenses. We will begin the course by exploring an array of sociological, historical, and scientific theoretical frameworks useful in studying the impact of structural race-based social inequality. We’ll interrogate […]

  • Science Technology Profit in Societies

    In this course we will examine the interrelation of science and social progress. As we will see, legal and governing systems are inextricably linked to scientific progress, and science is a catalyst for social change. Profit and fortune seeking is a common denominator to both. We will examine cases of this relation in a wide […]

  • Social Innovation

    Social innovation is often defined as the creative pursuit of solutions to social or environmental problems. In this course, students will spend the first half of the term exploring and discussing case studies of social innovation projects. These case studies, along with texts like Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and InsightOut: Get Ideas […]

  • Sports Science

    This course is for students interested in developing a more solid understanding of the science behind performance enhancement. It draws from many disciplines, including physics, anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, kinesiology and computer science, as it explores the relationships among science, exercise and sports activities. Through in-depth study of the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems and evaluations of […]

  • World Seen Through a Daily Newspaper

    The materials and issues of this course are derived from an intensive reading of the daily New York Times. Students track various geopolitical, economic and social issues as they are reported in the newspaper during the course of the term. Class time is devoted to an analysis of these issues, as well as to a […]