The Coming Years
An open-ended seminar from MIT's Experimental Study Group that asks students to think seriously about the future. Sessions center on modeling, assigned readings, and group discussion, with the class choosing which trends to track: shifts in science and technology, changes in culture and everyday lifestyles, and the larger paradigms that shape societies. Rather than a fixed lecture sequence, the course runs as a discussion-driven workshop where participants build and test their own models of where current trends might lead. Materials include readings selected each term and discussion prompts rather than a rigid syllabus, reflecting its seminar format. The course is offered through MIT OpenCourseWare, so all materials are free to access, with no certificate offered. It suits students who want practice reasoning about long-term change rather than a technical survey of futurism as a field.