Academics:

Watson’s curriculum focuses on the development of the skills and tools necessary to drive forward positive change. Core elements of the curriculum include: empathy, creativity, resilience, and grit. We also focus on hard skills including, but not limited to: fundraising, team building, customer/beneficiary validation, impact measurement, marketing, and scaling.

The full degree track curriculum is taught over the course of two years, and the syllabi for each semester are given below. If a scholar is joining Watson’s semester program, each course is meant to be stand alone, while also fitting into the overall degree track curriculum.

The Lab: In addition, a significant component of each semester is the Watson Lab, a creative co-working style space on campus. Through the Lab, scholars are connected to a team of mentors, receive weekly personalized coaching, learn a ‘toolkit’ of technical skills, and have the time to develop, implement and grow their ideas.

Master Courses: The final element of the Watson experience are ‘master courses’ taught by leading practitioners. Past master course teachers include Jerry White who shares in the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines; Amory Lovins one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people; Kamran Elahian the founder of 10 companies (3 of which sold for between $75-700 million) and 2 non-profits; Tom Shadyac the director of Ace Ventura and I Am, among others. A full list of previous master course teachers is available here. Some master courses are taught as part of one of the courses below, while others are stand alone.

Each semester track scholar has the option to chose which of the classes below to enroll in and which master courses to join.