- School of Architecture (ARCH)
- Marshall School of Business (BUCO, GSBA, IOM)
- School of Cinematic Arts (CTAN, CTCS, CTIN, CTPR, CTWR)
- Comparative Literature (COLT)
- Kaufman School of Dance (DANC)
- School of Dramatic Arts (THTR)
- Earth Sciences (GEOL)
- East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALC)
- Viterbi School of Engineering (ITP)
- Roski School of Fine Arts (FA, FACE, FADN, FADW, FAIN, FAPT, FASC, PAS)
- Thornton School of Music (MPGU, MPKS, MPPM, MPST, MPVA, MUCO, MUEN, MUHL, MUIN, MUJZ, MUSC)
- Occupational Therapy (OT)
- Price School of Public Policy (PPD)
School of Architecture
ARCH 106x Workshop in Architecture (2 units)
Description: Introduction to the ways architecture is created and understood, for minors and non-majors. Hands-on discussion and laboratory session with some drawing and model building. Not available for credit to architecture majors.ARCH 214a World History of Architecture (3 units)
Description: A world-wide perspective of architectural history as a product of social, cultural, religious, and political dimensions, a: 4500 BCE to 1500 CE.ARCH 220 The Architect's Sketchbook (2 units)
Description: The architect's sketchbook as a portable laboratory for perceiving and documenting space introduces the study of the built environment. On-site sessions develop drawing, observation, and visualization skills.ARCH 404 Topics in Modern Architecture in Southern California (3 units)
Description: Investigation of modern architecture in Southern California within its cultural and historic contexts.ARCH 406 Global Studies: Topics in Architecture, Urbanism, History and Art (2 units)
Description: Offered for particular geographic areas of study. Required prerequisite for all full semester undergraduate global programs. Also intended for general interest in focused study on particular geographic area. Prerequisite: ARCH 214ab or ARCH 304.ARCH 419 Architectural Sustainability Tools and Methods (3 units)
Description: Lectures, comparative studies and exercises on international architectural sustainability rating and certification systems.ARCH 421 Digital Architectural Photography (2 units)
Description: Perceiving and documenting the built environment through the perspective and frame of the digital camera. Mastering the basic principles of the digital image though an understanding of frame, light, exposure, color correction, and printing output.ARCH 422L Architectural Photography - Film and Digital (3 units)
Description: See how light alters the visual impact of architectural forms; master high-resolution images both with film and digital; become a professional image developer/processor utilizing photographic software.ARCH 434 City Cine: Visuality, Media and Urban Experience (3 units)
Description: This seminar explores the relationship between urban experience and visual media (from the photographic, to the filmic, to the digital) from circa 1880 to the present.ARCH 440m Literature and the Urban Experience (4 units)
Description: Post-industrial revolution urban environments and dynamic relationships in cities such as Manchester, Paris, St. Petersburg, New York, and Los Angeles, as revealed in novels, architecture, and urban forms.ARCH 444 Great Houses of Los Angeles (4 units)
Description: An introduction to the architectural philosophies of seven influential California architects through reading and site visits to significant case studies. (Duplicates credit in former ARCH 322.)ARCH 499 Special Topics (2, 3, 4, max 8 units)
Description: Selected topics in various specialty areas of architecture.ARCH 520 Housing and Community Design for an Aging Population (2 units)
Description: Exploration of the role design plays in enhancing independence and well-being for older people by examining cross-cultural models of housing and community design.ARCH 529 Urban Housing: Programs, Precedents, and Recent Case Studies (2 units)
Description: Historical overview of the major domestic and international housing developments and innovations since the early 20th century. Case study format examining a wide range of issues that determine the form of urban housing in various cultures. Major emphasis on the detail analysis of social, technical, and design factors affecting recent housing developments. Recommended preparation: two years of undergraduate architectural studies.ARCH 545 Urban Landscape: Contemporary History and Prospect (3 units)
Description: Explores contemporary landscape architecture propositions and projects in the context of cities. The exploration methodology includes the study of epochal projects and theoretical texts organized by central themes of nature and culture.ARCH 547 Urban Nature (3 units)
Description: Interactions of cities and nature: introduction to the ecology of cities; major threats to urban biodiversity interacting with human attitudes; review of restoration and conservation projects. Recommended preparation: ARCH 531.ARCH 553 History of American Architecture and Urbanism (3 units)
Description: History of American architecture and urbanism from prehistory to World War II examined in relation to European influences and indigenous developments.ARCH 563 Contemporary Architectural Theory (2 units)
Description: Investigates, compares, and critiques modern and contemporary theories of the designed and built environment by focusing on key figures, movements, and texts.Marshall School of Business
BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
BUCO 260 Business Communication Across Cultures (2 units)
Description: Develop intercultural communication competencies, analyze international business situations, build on/or prepare for GLP and LINC trips, internships abroad, and international exchange programs.BUCO 450 Communication for Organizations: Exploring Creativity (2 units)
Description: Development of individual creative thinking and problem-solving skills; exploration of workplace creativity; advancement of managerial communication skills necessary to foster organizational innovation.BUCO 458 Managing Communication and New Media (4 units)
Description: Individual and team exploration of 21st century media tools and their impact on communication strategies in business. Course uses social media, collaborative software, virtual immersion, and video conferencing.BUCO 460 International Business Communication (4 units)
Description: Explore the cultural dynamics and organizational communication models that contribute to successful business practices in multinational corporations and other global settings. Recommended preparation: BUAD 302.BUCO 503 Advanced Managerial Communication (3 units)
Description: Advanced skill development in the application of business communication theory to presentations and visual and verbal persuasion. Executive coaching model applied to interpersonal communication dynamics. (Open only to Accounting and Business graduate students, including dual degrees.) Recommended preparation: Prior course work or experience in management or business communication.GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
GSBA 599 Special Topics (1, 1.5, 2, 3, max 9 units)
Description:Selected topics reflecting current trends and recent developments in business administration. Emphasis on cross-disciplinary inquiry.INFORMATION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
IOM 401 Business Information Systems - Spreadsheet Applications (2 units)
Description: Provides an applied understanding of how spreadsheets are used to analyze business information. Create real world software application for use in accounting, finance, marketing and operations.IOM 424 Business Forecasting (4 units)
Description: A variety of forecasting techniques used by a variety of businesses. Emphasis on learning to apply these techniques to real data. Prerequisite: BUAD 310.IOM 431 Managing the Digital Revolution for Your Business (4 units)
Description: Specifics of digital technologies including Web 2.0, creating a Website, ERP, and CRM in a way to understand how these digital technologies can be used strategically by companies.IOM 435 Business Database Systems (4 units)
Description: Computer-based management of data including data structures, conceptual data modeling, logical data modeling, structured query language (SQL), and physical optimization of high performance databases.IOM 462 Managing a Small Business on the Internet (2 units)
Description: Foundational knowledge for managing a small business on the Internet including strategies, tools, and resources integrated with hands-on skills for developing a small business Website.IOM 483 Operations Consulting (4 units)
Description: Study of concepts and techniques for improving operations, formulation and implementation of operations strategy, and development of frameworks for process design, selection and performance evaluation. Prerequisite: BUAD 311.IOM 547 Designing Spreadsheet-Based Business Models (3 units)
Description: Application of decision analysis, simulation and optimization techniques to managerial problems. Students learn how to create and present useful spreadsheet models to analyze practical business models. Recommended preparation: completion of first-year MBA courses.IOM 580 Project Management (3 units)
Description: Applications of systems theory and concepts, matrix organizational structures, PERT/CPM project modeling, and management information systems to the management of complex and critical projects. Recommended preparation: GSBA 504b or GSBA 534.IOM 582 Service Management: Economics and Operations (3 units)
Description: Examination of the service industry from a managerial and entrepreneurial perspective; emphasis on the tactical decisions needed to design and deliver successful and profitable services. Open only to business and accounting students. Recommended preparation: GSBA 504b or 534.IOM 583 Operations Consulting (3 units)
Description: Development of conceptual and analytic skill for improving operations. Analysis of business strategy, formulating and implementing operations strategy, process analysis and design, and project management. Recommended preparation: GSBA 504b or GSBA 534.IOM 599 Special Topics (1, 1.5, 2, 3 units)
Description: Selected topics reflecting current trends and recent developments in operations management, information systems, and decision support systems.School of Cinematic Arts
ANIMATION
CTAN 330 Animation Fundamentals (2 units)
Description: An introduction to the fundamentals of animation, covering such topics as timing, anticipation, reaction, overlapping action, and metamorphosis.CTAN 432 The World of Visual Effects (2 units)
Description: Introduction to the expanding field of visual effects; topics include integration for cinematic storytelling and the study of digital productions employing the latest visual effects.CTAN 448 Introduction to Film Graphics - Animation (4 units)
Description:An introduction to methods for creating analog animation through experimentation with imagery, concepts and materials. Emphasis on basic timing principles and hands-on techniques.CTAN 450a Animation Theory and Techniques (2 units)
Description: Methods for creating animation blending traditional techniques with contemporary technologies.CTAN 452 Introduction to 3-D Computer Animation (2 units)
Description: Lecture and laboratory in computer animation: geometric modeling, motion specification, lighting, texture mapping, rendering, compositing, production techniques, systems for computer-synthesized animation.CTAN 460 Character Design Workshop (2 units)
Description: The basics of character design for animation: anatomy, poses, facial expressions, silhouettes, and anthropomorphism. Development of a portfolio.CTAN 462 Visual Effects (2 units)
Description: Survey of contemporary concepts and approaches to production in the current state of film and video effects work. Digital and traditional methodologies will be covered, with a concentration on digital exercises illustrating modern techniques.CTAN 465L Digital Effects Animation (2 units)
Description: All aspects of digital effects animation, including particles, dynamics, and fluids. Creating water, fire, explosions, and destruction in film. Prerequisite: CTAN 452 or CTAN 462.Includes an introduction to the rich procedural capabilities of Houdini, the standard application used in the industry for effects animation. The course will encompass a series of hands-on exercises, so a prior basic working knowledge of Maya or other 3-D application is essential.
CTAN 470 Documentary Animation Production (2 units)
Description: Examination of the history, techniques, and methods of documentary animation production. Collaboration on a short film project.CTAN 503 Storyboarding for Animation (2 units)
Description: Focus on film grammar, perspective, and layout, staging and acting as it relates to storyboarding for animation.CTAN 550 Stop Motion Puppet and Set Design (2 units)
Description: Puppet and set design for stop motion animation while providing guidance on armature rigs that allow the character to be animated effectively.CRITICAL STUDIES
CTCS 190 Introduction to Cinema (4 units)
Description: Gateway to majors and minors in cinema-television. Technique, aesthetics, criticism, and social implications of cinema. Lectures accompanied by screenings of appropriate films.Rated one of the top six "USC classes you cannot afford to miss"(Saturday Night Magazine, 2004), this course explores the formal properties of cinema, such as literary design, performance, and film design. Films may include Raging Bull, Sunset Blvd., Singin' in the Rain, All About Eve, and No Country for Old Men.
Professor: Drew Casper
CTCS 191 Introduction to Television and Video (4 units)
Description: Exploration of the economic, technological, aesthetic, and ideological characteristics of the televisual medium; study of historical development of television and video including analysis of key works; introduction to TV/Video theory and criticism.Are we doomed to a future of wall-to-wall reality television? Will YouTube replace network TV? This course studies television as a unique dramatic form.
Professor: Nitin P. Govil
CTCS 192m Race, Class, and Gender in American Film (4 units)
Description: Analyzes issues of race, class and gender in contemporary American culture as represented in the cinema.One of the most popular classes offered at USC, this course focuses on the relationship between film and American society in order to address issues of race, class, and gender in contemporary Hollywood cinema. This course satisfies the university's diversity requirement.
Professor: Todd E. Boyd
CTCS 408 Contemporary Political Film and Video (4 units)
Description: Examination of a variety of politically engaged films and videotapes recently produced in the U.S. and abroad, with particular emphasis on aesthetic strategies.History of Marxist Cultural Theory. The crisis of capitalism creates new crises for the 99% working people across the globe. How can we understand it? And how can we understand cinema's relations to these crises? This course will provide the answers through the study of the basic texts in Marxist aesthetics.
Professor: David James
CTCS 464 Film and/or Television Genres (4 units)
Description: Rigorous examination of film and/or television genres: history, aesthetics, cultural context, social significance, and critical methodologies.Professors: Ellen Seiter, Drew Casper
CTCS 469 Film and/or Television Style Analysis (4 units)
Description: Intensive study of the style of an auteur, studio, film or television making mode in terms of thematic and formal properties and their influences upon the art of film.Professors: Todd E. Boyd, Rene Bruckner
CTCS 501 History of Global Cinema Before World War II (2 units)
Description: Historical survey of global cinema from its beginnings until the advent of World War II.This course surveys the history of cinema's first half-century. Lectures, discussions, readings and screenings will explore the formal diversity of international cinema and examine the impact of global circulation and the complicated dominance of the American film industry.
Professor: Denise McKenna
CTCS 517 Introductory Concepts in Cultural Studies (4 units)
Description: Introduction to central concepts, key theories, and/or leading figures in cultural studies, particularly as they relate to issues of popular culture and visual media.We will examine the different theories and theorists that make up the world of cultural studies, as well as various methods academics use to decode the objects and ideas that surround us.
Professor: Aniko Imre
INTERACTIVE MEDIA
CTIN 190 Introduction to Interactive Entertainment (4 units)
Description: Critical vocabulary and historical perspective in analyzing and understanding experiences with interactive entertainment; students imagine and articulate their own ideas. (Duplicates credit in former CTIN 309.)Lectures will address the cultural history and theories of videogames. Students will play, analyze, interpret and discuss works from 1961 to the present, while cultivating a critical language for videogame aesthetics.
Professor: William Huber
CTIN 404L Usability Testing for Games (2 units)
Description: Concepts and methods of usability assessment. The emphasis will be on understanding the issues surrounding game interfaces, and utilizing usability assessment methods.As games become more sophisticated in their visual design, features, and cultural impact, the study of how we interact with them and understand them becomes an essential aspect of our media literacy. The emphasis will be on understanding game interfaces and translating them into design recommendations.
Professor: Heather Desurvire
CTIN 444 Audio Expression (2 units)
Description: Foundational aesthetic principles and creative technologies for game audio. Processing, mixing, and controlling sound for games for expressive effect. Recommended preparation: CTIN 406L.This course introduces students to key principles and technologies that will enable them to craft the story elements of a game, control the pacing of gameplay, enforce the gameplay narrative, elicit and influence emotion, create mood, shape perception, and reinforce the way players experience game characters.
Professor: Chanel-France Summers
CTIN 486 Immersive Design Workshop (2 units)
Description: Design of game projects using immersive input devices. Development of play mechanics, feedback systems and game design for immersive environments.A course focusing on designing for immersiveness using Kinect and other physical and gestural impact systems. Experiments with new technologies to design games and interactive experiences that deeply affect and reach the player.
Professor: Mark Essen
CTIN 488 Game Design Workshop (4 units)
Description: Theory and evaluation of interactive game experiences and principles of game design utilizing the leading software approaches and related technologies. Recommended preparation: CTIN 390, CTIN 483.Students will experience the fundamentals of game design through the study of classic games in both traditional and electronic form, as well as design their own games. Designed to provide the foundation of knowledge for becoming a professional game designer.
CTIN 492L Game Design Workshop (4 units)
Description: Development of a game around a custom-made physical interface; various technologies and techniques involved in software/hardware integration; peripheral design.Focus on developing your design practice by studying both experimental games and experimental art from the entire history of media and expression. Work on several small, experimental games exploring the expanses of what games can do, be, and communicate.
Professor: Richard Lemarchand
PRODUCTION
CTPR 327 Motion Picture Camera (3 units)
Description: Use of motion picture camera equipment; principles of black-and-white and color cinematography. Individual projects.The magic of creating images on film, from using cameras, lenses, and filters to photographic processes and the role of the cinematographer in interpreting story. Hands-on projects put theory into practice.
CTPR 340 Motion Picture Sound Editing (2 units)
Description: Techniques and aesthetic principles for recording and editing dialogue, music, and sound effects for film, television and other media.Explorations of aesthetics, theory, history and procedures of sound editing for many styles of film and TV.
CTPR 426 The Production Experience (2 units)
Description: To provide students with basic working knowledge of both the skills of the motion picture set and production operations through classroom lectures and hands-on experience.Learn the fundamentals of episodic TV drama and participate in the shooting of an episode written and directed by students. Positions available in producing, camera, sound, production design, or editorial.
CTPR 461 Managing Television Stations and Internet Media (2 units)
Description: Managing electronic media, including radio and television stations, broadcast and cable networks, and the Internet.In a period of unprecedented growth and change in media, students focus on how managers of TV, cable, radio and digital mass media are facing the challenges of the era. The class includes guest speakers, field trips and studies in mass media financing, marketing, and history.
CTPR 470 Practicum in On-screen Direction of Actors (4 units)
Description: Managing electronic media, including radio and television stations, broadcast and cable networks, and the Internet.This class focuses on the relationship between a director and actor. Students will learn to break down scripts from the actor's point of view and give the director an understanding of the process an actor has to go through to achieve the emotional elements that the director would like to create.
WRITING
CTWR 411 Television Script Analysis (2 units)
Description: In-depth analysis of the craft of writing prime-time episodic television. Examination of situation comedies and dramas through weekly screenings and lectures.CTWR 412 Introduction to Screenwriting (2 units)
Description: Introduction to the formal elements of writing the short film.Learn the basic building blocks of any screenplay — visualization, character, dialogue, scene structure, conflict, and sequence. After writing short premises, students will progress to combining scenes into sequences and a short script.
CTWR 417 Script Coverage and Story Analysis (2 units)
Description: Evaluation of completed scripts prior to their production. Coverage and analysis of scripts as potential properties from the perspective of a production company.CTWR 431 Screenwriters and Their Work (2, max 6 units)
Description: Detailed investigation of a specific screenwriter's style and the works they've influenced. Lectures include screenings and visiting screenwriters.Sex, Violence, Crime and Paranoia: Great Screenwriters of the '70s looks at the work of four screenwriters — Robert Towne, Francis Coppola, Waldo Salt and Mardik Martin — who responded to the passions, people and problems of a turbulent decade with originality, rebelliousness and a storytelling verve that redefined American cinema.
Comparative Literature
COLT 312 Heroes, Myths and Legends in Literature and the Arts (4 units)
Description: Study of transformations of characters and themes from myth, legend or fairytale (Oedipus, Antigone, Faust, Don Juan, Cinderella, Comic and Tragic Twins, Hero and Monster).Stories about the end dominate the 21st century. We will trace apocalyptic themes to explore ways of imagining the unthinkable, analyzing verbal and visual texts.
COLT 373 Literature and Film (2 units)
Description: IExamines literature and film as distinct modes of representation, narration, and structuring of time, language, memory, and visuality.This course will consist of a series of glimpses into the literary and filmic properties of repetition and extension, the representation of bodies and voices, and other features that will appear in different ways across works of literature and film.