Designing an Introductory Course on Computational Sociology

This project explores the beginning stages of planning an introductory course in computational sociology for undergraduate students. Computational sociology is a field that combines computer science and sociology through the creation of computer simulations. These simulations are based on theories and frameworks from sociology and are modeled using coding languages such as Python. This course is geared towards students majoring in computer science or in sociology to encourage an interdisciplinary approach from each respective field to the other. This project looks at utilizing agent-based models for instructive purposes. Agent-based models are computer models that focus on how interactions between agents create larger patterns within the model. The agents are given simple rules and the resulting patterns that arise from the interactions between the agents is called emergent phenomena. The goal of this course is to show how the concept of emergence may tie the two fields together and encourage students to create their own models using Python.