Global Economics - Freshmen

Course # HUSS 1033

Credits 3

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

This course examines culture, tradition, identity, and change in Central Asia through the idea of the cultural landscape. It asks how geography, environment, economy, institutions, and historical change shape cultural practices, and how cultural values in turn influence livelihoods, economic behavior, resource use, settlement, and social life. Using Central Asian case studies, students explore nomadic and sedentary lifeways, Soviet and post-Soviet transformations, faith and sacred landscapes, life-cycle rituals, oral traditions, music, film, heritage, nation-building, pluralism, tourism, and sustainability. Cultural expressions are approached not only as legacies of the past, but also as living resources for innovation, creative economies, environmental adaptation, intercultural understanding, and cooperation.

Why this course matters

For Global Economics students, the course shows how culture influences consumption, labor, tourism, entrepreneurship, institutions, household spending, and development. For Earth and Environmental Studies students, it shows that landscapes are not only ecological systems: they are also places of memory, identity, livelihood, belief, and cultural meaning. Through field observation, mapping, documentary storytelling, and design challenges, students investigate how culture, economy, and environment interact in real places.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon the completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain key concepts such as culture, tradition, identity, ritual, innovation, cultural landscape, tangible heritage, and intangible heritage in Central Asian contexts.
• Analyze how geography, climate, natural resources, livelihoods, and economic systems shape cultural practices and social organization.
• Compare continuity and change in Central Asian cultural life across Soviet and post-Soviet periods, including life-cycle rituals, faith, expressive culture, and nation-building.
• Evaluate how cultural heritage, tourism, crafts, festivals, sacred sites, and creative practices contribute to local and regional economies while creating environmental and social opportunities or pressures.
• Collect and interpret evidence from readings, field observation, maps, images, interviews, films, and other media in an ethical and culturally sensitive way.
• Design and communicate an interdisciplinary response to a real cultural, economic, or environmental challenge using visual, oral, digital, and collaborative methods.

Course Assessments and Grading

Course # HUSS 1103

Credits 3

TBA

Course # HUSS 1113

Credits 3

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

This course explores the formation of Tajik people/nation in different periods of history, starting from the creation of the first societies, and states pre-modern Central Asia. It investigates two key themes. The first is the role of geography, politics and economics in determining the fate of the people, of an ethnic group in the region. The second is the contingent nature of identities, in particular, ethnic identity. In other words, identities are never unchanging or natural, but they are the product of wider circumstances. Central Asia’s position as a trading corridor meant that different cultures and the institutions associated with them were widely disseminated and intermingled. By exploring how the development of states and societies is influenced by the interplay of geography, climate, cultures, religions, and civilizations, students will be equipped to, think critically about their own national identity.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon the completion of the course, students will be able to:

    1. Discuss the contingent nature of culture, and identity religion in human societies

• Explain why identities change
• Analyse reasons how geographical place,  socio-economic and political changes  influence on identity
• Discuss how skilled individuals are produced or gathered

2. Compare different encounters between Eurasian cultures and religions and their impact on the formation of ethnic group

• Explore the ways Central Eurasia had acted as a thoroughfare for people and ideas
• Discuss how the political and social-economic transformations in Central Asia had affected the development of ethnic group
• Explore how the Tajik nation was formed

3. Use primary sources to question received narratives about the past

• • Identify appropriate contexts for using primary sources
  • Examine appropriate questions to seek from primary sources
  • Explore the historical sites of Tajikistan

Course Assessments and Grading

Course # HUSS 1116

Credits 6

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

This comprehensive and transformative course is designed to enhance students' transition from general academic communication to specialized communication across various academic disciplines. The course aims to equip freshmen with the skills necessary to excel in effective rhetoric, critical analysis, and compelling writing. Students explore the relationship between concepts and communication in their chosen field, progressing from foundational understanding to advanced application. Through engaging classroom instruction, practical exercises, collaborative activities, and comprehensive assessments, students cultivate the ability to convey complex theories, arguments, and research findings with clarity, precision, and persuasion. By the course's conclusion, students will be well-prepared to succeed in diverse academic and professional contexts, equipped with robust communication skills pertinent to their chosen field.

Course learning outcomes

Upon the completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Evaluate the main argument of a scholarly article (critical review).
• Assess quality academic sources Synthesize (connect and compare) sources to show themes and gaps- (peer-reviewed, credible, relevant-literature review).
• Write clear, well-structured mini-research project (built on the literature review in LO2) with correct citation (APA or other required style).- Apply research writing practices
• Give presentation on the research paper (5–7 minutes. visual - poster or slides) - Apply research writing practices
• Course Assessments and Grading 

Course # HUSS 1031

Credits 3

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

This course explores the geography and demography of Tajikistan, highlighting their links to the country’s economic development. The focus on economic geography encompasses topics such as demography, the perception and utilization of spaces, and the sustainable management of natural resources in both Tajikistan and the broader Central Asian region. Key themes, including resource exploitation, water utilization, industry, agriculture, population and labor resources, and cross-boundary relations and exchanges, are examined throughout the course. The aim is to deepen students' understanding of Tajikistan's role within Central Asia by exploring its economy, environment, natural resources, demography, and development prospects. Through the study and analysis of these topics, students gain evidence-based insights into the geography, economy, and demography of the country. Additionally, students learn how to connect empirical data with theoretical frameworks and critically interpret various sources.

Course Learning Outcomes and Objectives

Upon the completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain how the geographic features of Tajikistan (Central Asia) are linked with  natural resources,  agriculture, industry, and infrastructure.
• Explain the salient features of Tajikistan’s natural resource potential and relate the ways the resources are used to livelihood strategies and development
• Analyse sources to unpack human-environmental relations in the context of natural resources use, and socio-economic activities

Course Assessments and Grading

Course # ECON 1001

Credits 6

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course Description

Introduction to Microeconomics covers interactions between individual households and businesses. The course explains how prices of different commodities and factors of production are determined. It helps students understand how the free-market economy works and introduces basic economic concepts. The course introduces the concepts needed to understand economic policies and their effects on society and shows which policies can enhance productive efficiency and may result in greater social welfare. In brief, the course explains how a capitalist economy works. Students will develop quantitative reasoning skills through problem-solving, graphical analysis, and real-world applications.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successfully completing this course, students should be able to:

• Explain the three main building blocks of supply and demand analysis – demand curves, supply curves, and the concept of market equilibrium.
• Apply utility functions in the analysis of preferences with a single and multiple goods.
• Calculate expected utility as a way to evaluate risky outcomes.
• Derive the equation of an isoquant from the equation of the production function.
• Describe the conditions that characterize different types of market structure.
• Explain why some kinds of games can lead players to cooperate, while other kinds do not.
• Explain why externalities and public goods are a source of market failure.

Course Assessments and Grading

Course # HUSS 1126

Credits 6

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course description

This course is designed for international students beginning their study of the Russian language, with the aim of developing solid basic written and oral communication skills for use in limited contexts—specifically in everyday life, socio-cultural interactions, and academic settings.

In Russian classes, students develop all key language skills: writing, reading, listening comprehension, and speaking. A primary objective of the course is to create an environment that fosters student interest in the material and shapes the learning process.

Starting with the alphabet and the correct pronunciation of letters, students will acquire basic conversational skills, learn appropriate social behavior, and master simple ethical and aesthetic norms of communication in Russian. Using dialogues and multi-party conversations as models, they will learn to construct their own short stories based on the vocabulary and grammar covered in class. Great emphasis is placed on practical Russian language proficiency in all forms of communication and social contexts, with significant time dedicated to everyday social interactions and academic settings.

The course comprises 96 hours of instruction. Classes are held three times per week, with each session consisting of two consecutive academic hours.

Course learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

• 1) Listening
  When listening to monologues, the student should be able to:

  • comprehend information contained in a monologue. Text types: specially created or adapted texts, as well as narrative texts;
  • understand isolated familiar words and very simple phrases in slow, clear speech during everyday interactions involving topics such as oneself, one’s family, and one’s immediate surroundings.

  When listening to a dialogue, the student must be able to aurally comprehend the topic, the main information conveyed by the interlocutor, and their communicative intentions. The subject matter relates to everyday communication and the socio-cultural sphere.

  2) Reading
  The learner should be able to read a text with the aim of grasping its general content; identify the text’s topic; and understand familiar names, words, and very simple sentences found in announcements, on posters, or in catalogs (such as street names, shop names, etc.).

  3) Writing
  The student should be able to:

  • apply sound-letter correspondences when transcribing speech heard (syllables, words, short phrases) using the Russian writing system, employing printed and handwritten, lowercase and uppercase letters;
  • write phonetic and orthographic dictations;
  • construct a written monologue on a studied topic, guided by questions;
  • write simple greeting cards (e.g., holiday greetings) and fill out forms, entering details such as surname, nationality, and address on registration sheets at hotels, airports, and in other everyday social situations.

  4) Speaking
  Monologue
  The students should be able to:

  • independently produce coherent, logical statements on topics studied in accordance with the specific communicative task;
  • create reproductive-type monologues with varying formal and semantic structures (narration, description, or reporting on covered topics using learned lexical and grammatical material);
  • talk about where they live and people they know, using simple phrases and sentences.

  Dialogic speech
  The student should be able to:

  • understand the content of an interlocutor’s statements and identify their communicative intentions within the scope of studied topics and communicative situations; respond appropriately to the interlocutor’s remarks; initiate and conclude a dialogue, and express their own communicative intentions within the scope of studied topics and communicative situations;
  • participate in a dialogue if the interlocutor repeats their statement at a slower pace or paraphrases it;
  • ask and answer simple questions regarding familiar topics or topics of personal interest.

  5) Information Literacy
  The students should be able to identify when there is a need for, locate, evaluate, organize, use, and share information to inform and solve problems in relation to an identified challenge or situation, in an effective and responsible manner.

  6) Creative Thinking
  The students should be able to explore ideas, generate possibilities, and seek out and/or develop other alternate responses rather than opting for one immediate or “correct” answer.

Course Assessment and Grading

Course # HUSS 1127

Credits 6

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course description

The course is designed for international students who have successfully completed the beginner-level programme. An important prerequisite for these courses is a good level of preparation and thorough acquisition and consolidation of the material covered, both grammatical and lexical.

The information-rich content of the course will contribute to the development of students’ intellectual skills and their ability to engage in learning and cognitive activities more broadly. This will be achieved through tasks such as “Let’s Debate”, “Convince Your Friend”, and activities involving discussion and reflection on statements and opinions.

Through texts accompanied by pre-reading and post-reading tasks, lexical and grammatical exercises, and participation in discussions, students will develop practical proficiency in Russian across all major language skills and areas of communication. The course will also help students expand their vocabulary.

The course consists of 96 academic hours. Classes are held three times a week, with two consecutive academic hours per session.

Course learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

• • 1) Listening

    Listening to Monological Speech

    Students should be able to:

    • understand information presented in monological speech, including the topic, main idea, and key and supporting information in each meaningful part of a message;
    • understand the main content of texts, radio and television programmes, stories, and novels by Russian and Tajik writers presented in Russian.

    Listening to Dialogical Speech

    Students should be able to:

    • understand the content of a speaker’s utterance and their communicative intentions;
    • understand dialogues on topics relevant to everyday communication and the sociocultural sphere.

    2) Reading

    Students should be able to:

    • use different reading strategies depending on the communicative purpose;
    • identify the topic of a text and understand its main idea;
    • adequately understand both the main and supporting information contained in a text;
    • interpret information presented in a text, as well as the author’s conclusions and evaluations.

    3) Writing

    Students should be able to:

    • produce written monological texts of reproductive and productive nature on a given topic;
    • produce written monological texts based on a text they have read or listened to, in accordance with a specified communicative purpose and using the studied lexical and grammatical material;
    • write dictations;
    • develop an outline based on the content of a text;
    • produce written monological texts based on a given text or a topic assigned by the instructor, including essays and summaries.

    4) Speaking

    Monological Speech

    Students should be able to:

    • convey the content of a text logically and coherently, dividing their speech into clearly defined meaningful parts;
    • provide well-structured answers to the instructor’s questions;
    • discuss and express opinions about the content of a text;
    • speak freely about themselves, their family, leisure activities, books they have read, films they have watched, newspaper articles related to their field of study, and their academic specialisation.

    Students’ speech should comply with the norms of contemporary Russian and use the studied lexical and grammatical material, taking into account generally accepted socially appropriate norms of speech etiquette.

    Dialogical Speech

    Students should be able to:

    • understand the content and main intentions expressed in a conversation with an interlocutor;
    • maintain a conversation, engage the interlocutor’s interest, and persuade them of a particular point;
    • conduct dialogues in different communicative situations while observing appropriate speech, behavioural, and etiquette norms;
    • use expressive means of the Russian language in speech;
    • observe the norms of standard Russian pronunciation.

    5) Creative Thinking

    Students should learn to:

    • explore ideas;
    • generate possible options;
    • seek and develop alternative solutions without limiting themselves to a single obvious or “correct” answer.

    6) Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving

    Students should be able to:

    • address complex questions and problems by obtaining, processing, analysing, and interpreting information in order to make well-founded judgements and informed decisions;
    • use various communicative strategies and tactics applicable in academic, professional, and scholarly contexts;
    • ask different types of questions, including simple, clarifying, interpretive, creative, evaluative, and practical questions.

Course Assessment and Grading:

Course # HUSS 1128

Credits 6

Prerequisites and/or Corequisites: None

Course description

The course is designed for international students who have an advanced level of proficiency in Russian.

The main aim of the course is to develop students’ speaking and writing skills in Russian at a professional level and across various areas of communication, including formal communication, business communication, and academic communication (both written and oral). The course also aims to develop students’ ability to analyse journalistic and literary texts, business documentation, and to develop basic skills in producing such texts.

The course consists of 96 academic hours. Classes are held three times a week, with two consecutive academic hours per session.

Classes are organised on an interactive basis. A selection of texts on a variety of topics, in different styles and genres, is provided for independent study.

Course learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

• 1) Listening

  Students should be able to:

  • understand information presented orally that is necessary for addressing cognitive and communicative tasks in academic and professional contexts;
  • understand monological speech of an explanatory nature, such as an instructor’s explanation during general education classes or an academic lecture, including the topic, main content, and key information in individual meaningful sections of a text;
  • understand the content of instructional question-and-answer dialogues and the communicative intentions of the participants.

  2) Reading

  Students should be able to:

  • understand the main content of a text, the key and supporting information in individual meaningful sections, as well as the logical and cause-and-effect relationships between them;
  • use all major types of reading applicable to academic literature, including intensive, extensive, skimming, and scanning, involving different levels of comprehension and information compression;
  • vary their reading approach depending on the purpose, complexity, and importance of the text.

  3) Writing

  Students should be able to:

  • use the main methods of processing information from texts, including preparing outlines and notes based on a text or several information sources;
  • record key fragments of a text presented orally, using commonly accepted abbreviations and symbols;
  • summarise the content of a text they have read;
  • prepare presentation or report outlines and written communications on a research topic;
  • demonstrate skills in writing formal and business letters;
  • conduct business correspondence, including correspondence via the Internet;
  • work with subject-specific academic articles and identify their main ideas and key points.

  4) Speaking

  Monological Speech

  Students should be able to:

  • produce monological speech of a reproductive and productive nature based on a text they have read or listened to, using an outline, questions, tables, or notes as support;
  • identify functional and semantic types of speech/text, including description, argumentation, and narration, and produce texts of different functional and semantic types;
  • deliver presentations or reports, participate in discussions, and observe the conventions and ethics of academic discussion;
  • produce oral and written communication appropriate to the communicative context, type of speech, communicative situation, and purpose;
  • use subject-specific terminology and a range of expressive means of the Russian language in speech, as well as obtain and communicate specific information about people, facts, and events.

  Interactive (Dialogical) Speech

  Students should be able to:

  • understand the communicative intentions of an interlocutor and respond appropriately to their statements;
  • participate in question-and-answer dialogues;
  • clarify information by asking appropriate questions;
  • distinguish between the different meanings of polysemous words, dictionary and contextual meanings, and the meanings of international words;
  • adequately convey the meaning of an academic text while observing the norms of the Russian language.

  5) Creative Thinking

  Students should be able to:

  • explore ideas;
  • generate possible options;
  • seek and develop alternative solutions without limiting themselves to a single obvious or “correct” answer.

  6) Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving

  Students should be able to:

  • address complex questions and problems by obtaining, processing, analysing, and interpreting information in order to make well-founded judgements and informed decisions;
  • use various communicative strategies and tactics applicable in academic, professional, and scholarly contexts;
  • apply the norms of business language in terms of vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and style;
  • develop the skills and abilities required to edit business documents;
  • develop the ability to prepare and format selected types of official and business documents.

Course Assessment and Grading

Physical training

Course # HUSS 1080

Credits 0

Pre-requisites and Co-requisites: None

Course description

The purpose of physical education is to strengthen health, develop the physical and mental abilities of students. Physical exercises and sports games is the way to a powerful and functional body, clear mind and strong spirit. The course is both practical and theoretical, it covers basic concepts of anatomy and physiology as well as health and safety requirements.  

Course learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

• perform a range of physical activities
• understand health and safety requirements for a range of physical activities
• describe the role and progress of sport in Central Asia
• chose an appropriate physical activities program for their age and gender
• identify tiredness and its symptoms to control the body during athletic exercises
• describe the technique of running for a long and a short distance and jumping
• accomplish running for a short and a long distance and jumping according to all necessary norms
• describe the rules of a range of sports games
• participate in a range of sports games according to their rules and techniques

Course Assessments and Grading

* The course will be graded with PASS/FAIL.