Visual Culture
Why Study Visual Culture?
In today's visual world, analyzing, interpreting, and creating visual media is essential for scientific advancements. Caltech's minor program in visual culture develops critical visual literacy that complements your scientific training, exploring how images, film, and digital media shape our understanding of science, technology, society, and ourselves.
Visual experiences are everywhere–from AI worldmaking to visualization technologies. Minoring in visual culture prepares you to communicate verbally, in writing, and through images, enhancing your future as a scientist, engineer, or researcher.
Why Visual Culture at Caltech?
If you have an interest in philosophy, film, history, or literature, the visual culture courses at Caltech provide unique opportunities to interpret the world around us through these lenses. Through our Caltech-Huntington Museum partnership, students gain access to world-class collections and cultural experiences. Courses can include experiences ranging from hands-on neon art workshops to field trips designed to explore 3D technology at the LA County Museum of Art.
Our film studies sequence explores the evolution of cinema from classical Hollywood to contemporary works such as Black Panther. Other specialized courses investigate the theoretical foundations of vision and visual representations and how science, politics, and emerging technologies intersect with art history and fine art.
What You'll Learn
Through intensive practice in analyzing images and their historical contexts, the visual culture minor builds a toolset that includes data visualization principles, visual rhetoric, and communication strategies. Equip yourself to make impactful choices in representing data or concepts through visual representation with an informed perspective rooted in historical and cultural understandings needed to bridge cultural gaps in global careers.
In film analysis and studies classes, learn how filmmakers have used storytelling to advocate for a new vision of the world. Other classes will examine the phenomenon of maps throughout history from both design and analytical perspectives. Whether analyzing political data visualizations, interpreting scientific imagery, or crafting compelling visual presentations of technical concepts, visual culture studies enhance your understanding of the world and how to communicate beyond language.
View the Caltech catalog for degree requirements and curriculum information.
Who You'll Learn From
Learn from faculty with diverse expertise in film studies, art history, media theory, and the intersection of science and visual culture. Our professors include researchers who study the graphics of AI-generated animated worlds, scholars of the history of scientific visualization, and experts in digital humanities. Through Caltech's Division of Humanities and Social Sciences and partnerships with local museums and botanical gardens, you will also learn from filmmakers, artists, curators, and researchers.
And so I really like how humanities and social science classes allow us to see broader applications of what we're doing instead of just sticking in our tiny little fields. We get to see how science and engineering impact the broader world, and the world is bigger than our subfields of science and engineering.
Career Possibilities
A visual culture minor enhances career prospects in scientific and technological research and industry with distinctive skills in fine art and film analysis, design, scientific visualization, media studies, and more. Visual literacy is increasingly valued in fields where empathy and cultural understanding are critical and where interpreting and creating compelling and effective visuals can impact outcomes, from data science to healthcare.
Curriculum Components and Prerequisites
The visual culture minor adds a number of visual culture courses to the curriculum of any declared major option and the first-year Caltech core. No prerequisites are required, and the flexible structure allows for courses tailored to your interests, from environmental justice to the philosophy of "seeing".
Pursue a Minor in Visual Culture at Caltech
Distinguish your scientific and technical education with unique perspectives offered by Caltech's visual culture minor program. Complement any major and pursue excellence in communication, research, and innovation while gaining a deeper appreciation for the cultural contexts and histories behind what we see daily as citizens, consumers, and scientists.