Selection of Distributional Electives
In the first year, students are required to take a minimum of 12 units of distributional electives from an approved list of courses.
Distributional electives may be completed in the second year with approval from the Domain Head.
Note that courses may not be offered every academic year.
These distributional electives are for students entering Fall 2026.
Urban Planning & Design
VIS 2128 Spatial Analysis (please note this is a 2-unit course)
DES 3521 Moral Leadership: Ethics in Public Life (at HKS)
DES 3534 Ephemeral Infrastructure
DES 3547 The City as Method: Analytical Techniques in Urban Design
SES 5206 Land Use and Environmental Law
SES 5213 Building Equitable Cities: Policy Tools for Housing and Community Development (at HKS)
SES 5215 Analytic Methods of Urban Planning (please note this is a 2-unit course)
SES 5258 Urban Economics I (please note this is a 2-unit course)
SES 5259 Urban Economics II (please note this is a 2-unit course)
SES 5386 Urban Ethnographies
SES 5409 Climate Justice
SES 5441 Urban Policy Analysis: Tools and Politics (at HKS)
SES 5464 Do No Harm: Dilemmas in Planning for Health
SES 5486 The Gentrification Debates
SES 5522 Rebuild: The Politics of Design
SES 5531 Building Beyond Capitalism: Community Ownership as Counterproject?
SES 5534 A Creative Act: Embedding Arts, Culture and Design in Planning
SCI 6509 Mapping the Region: Cartographic Methods for Place-Based Spatial Theory
SCI 6515 Decision-Driven Data for Planning and Design
Landscape Architecture
DES 3348 The Idea of Environment
HIS 4487 Plants of Ritual: Creating a Spiritual Connection to the Designed Landscape
SCI 6244 Climate by Design
SCI 6381 Power||Energy: Counter Mapping Infrastructural Ecologies
SCI 6494 Urban Soil Studies: From Field to Lab to Design
Architecture
VIS 2471 Architecture of Time
VIS 2484 Interdisciplinary Art and Design Practices
VIS 2488 Building a Vision: Leadership, Curatorial & Design Practices for Public Spaces
VIS 2491 Technologies of Assembly: Pre-Building Conditions
VIS 2492 Advanced Offering in Visual Studies and Communications
DES 3529 Architecture & the Death of Carbon Modernity
DES 3535 Essaying Architecture
DES 3546 AI and the Future of Humanity: Ethics and Political Theory (at HKS)
HIS 4531 Monuments, Monumentality, and Meaning
HIS 4532 Urban Fragments in America/ the Americas
HIS 4535 Metamedia (Intelligence Has Always Been Artificial)
SCI 6514 Generative Ground: Tools, Traces, and Geo/spatial Intelligence
SCI 6516 After Dark: Ecology, Justice, and Joy in the Nocturnal Luminous Environment
Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)
MLD-355 Public Narrative
MLD-820M Strategies for Social Impact
MLD-836M Social Entrepreneurship/Social Enterprise Deep Dive
IGA-356 Migration and Displacement in Crisis
IGA-455 Climate Leadership: Persuasion, Advocacy, and Negotiation
Harvard Divinity School (HDS)
HDS 2438 Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human
HDS 1650 How Do Rituals Work? Ancient Ritual and Modern Theory
Faculty of Art, Film and Visual Studies (AFVS)
AFVS 63 Introduction to Time-Based Media
AFVS 310 Reading and Research
MIT
MIT 11.312 Engaging Community: Models and Methods for Strengthening Democracy
MIT 11.367 Land Use Law and Politics: Race, Place, and Law
MIT 11.368 Environmental Justice: Law and Policy
MIT 4.359 Synchronizations of Senses
The objectives for core course selection should expose students to the following:
1. General concepts of governance and participation
2. General concepts of societal conflicts, crisis, contestations that effect the built and natural environment
3. Forms of practice that engage the publics
4. Varied forms of public domains
Students contemplating cross-registering for courses at another Harvard school must abide by the dates and policies of the school in which the course is offered. Priority for enrollment may be given to the other school’s students first before cross-registrations are accepted — enrollment is not guaranteed. See our Cross Registration Policies and Procedures.