Get Your Feet Wet with a Freshman Seminar
A freshman seminar is a good way to facilitate a smooth transition from an intimate high-school classroom to a lecture-hall college class. You may want to supplement your schedule of large lecture classes with a freshman seminar or two.
If you are a freshman looking for a way to increase your units without greatly increasing your stress, a one-unit freshman seminar may be a good way to get your feet wet. Limited to a maximum of twenty students each, these courses are given on a passed/not passed basis. They give you an opportunity to get to know a member of the faculty while exploring a particular topic in considerable depth.
Sarah Trumble, a peer advisor in the College of Letters and Science, wishes she had taken more than one freshman seminar. "It was a great way to get to know a professor and a small group of other new students," she says. "What I love most about freshman seminars is that the professor chooses the topic, and the whole class focuses on what they are researching, or what they find most interesting about their subject." Trumble says that's why the seminar professors and students are so enthusiastic to learn. "This close interaction can be hard to find in big freshmen introductory classes, so seminars are a great opportunity," she says.
Dr. Diane Eardley, who teaches a freshman seminar course called "Nutrition: You Are What You Eat," asks her students what topics they would like to learn about. She typically covers eating disorders and the dreaded "Freshman 15" right off the bat. Dr. Eardley says seminars "give freshmen an opportunity to get to know a faculty member, since many of the freshmen classes are very large. It's an excellent opportunity to talk informally with a professor, because that skill is very important, even in large classes," she says. "You can also get to the depth of some topics in a particular field, which you don't typically get the chance to do until your senior year." Dr. Eardley has taken her students on field trips to the Isla Vista School and Fairview Farms.
Freshman Seminar Coordinator Diedre Dixon says, "A few of the classes take field trips, which is an advantage of freshman seminars that you don't necessarily get with a big lecture class." L&S Health Professions Peer Advisor Daria Thompson regrets not taking a freshman seminar. "I wish I had taken the freshman seminars - you never get another chance to take those, and they are all interesting topics you aren't going to see in big lectures," she says. Dixon points out that seminar enrollment typically does not exceed 20 students per class, facilitating student-faculty contact. "Instead of classes at Campbell Hall where there are hundreds of students, freshman seminars give students a chance to be in a small class for maximum interaction," she explains.
"The variety is great enough every quarter that there is likely a topic that should appeal to every student," Dixon says. "If not that quarter, then perhaps the following quarter." Students may earn a total of three units from all INT 94AA-ZZ courses. Approximately 95 seminars are offered per academic year, and 36 are offered this upcoming winter quarter.
Review these titles of upcoming winter 2008 seminars and consider signing up for one of these classes, designed especially to give freshmen a personalized introduction to university coursework. Click on individual links for detailed descriptions and information about faculty for each course:
INT94BP: Dreaming Revolutions: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud
Professor Elisabeth Weber, Germanic, Slavic & Semetic Studies
INT94BZ: Genetic Modification of Food Crops
Professor Rolf Christoffersen, Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
INT94DK: A Materials World: Revolutions In Society
Professor Fred Lange, Materials
INT94FH: Film and Disability: Breaking The Mold
Professor George Singer, Education
INT94FT: Life, Art and, Chemistry
Professor Luc Jaeger, Chemistry
INT94FY: Musical Instruments of the World
Professor Dolores Hsu, Music
INT94GQ: Contemporary Political Issues In Historical Perspective
Professor Mario T. Garcia, History and Chicano Studies
INT94GT: The End Of The Age Of Oil
Professor Bruce Luyendyk, Geological Sciences
INT94GV: Evolutionary Basis of Human Sexuality
Professor Steven Gaulin, Anthropology
INT94HG: Close Looking: Examining Works of Art
Professor Ann Jensen Adams, Art History
INT94HK: From Text to Film: Asian American Cultural Productions
Professor Shirley Lim, English
INT94HP: Social Behavior in Immersive Virtual Environments
Professor Jim Blascovich, Psychology
INT94IE: Yuri Kochiyama, Malcom X and the Politics of Third World Solidarity
Professor Diane Fujino, Asian American Studies
INT94JF: Chinese American History from Films
Professor Xiaojian Zhao, Asian American Studies
INT94JG: Death, Revenge and Madness in Icelandic Literature and Culture
Professor Viola Miglio, Spanish and Portuguese
INT94JK: Latin America in Film
Professor Ellen McCracken, Spanish and Portuguese
INT94JL: Drinking Water in the 21st Century
Professor Jordan Clark
INT94JR: Cultural Identity in Spanish Literature, Film, and Music 1975-2005
Professor Silvia Bermudez, Spanish & Potuguese
INT94JS: A Walk in the Woods: An Introduction to the Landscape and Plants of the Santa Ynez Mountains
Professor Christopher Still, Geography
INT94JV: The Beauty of Mathematics
Professor Daryl Cooper, Mathematics
INT94JZ: Conversation and Social Life
Professor Geoffrey Raymond, Sociology
INT94KB: Aphrodite: Mighty or Flighty
Professor Dorota Dutsch, Classics
INT94KC: A Woman’s Bloody Revenge: Medea in Ancient and Modern Drama
Professor Francis Dunn, Classics
INT94KH: The Lives of Dead Bodies
Professor Bishnupriya Ghosh, English
INT94KN: Protect Your Brain
Professor Russell Revlin, Psychology
INT94KO: Black Los Angeles: History, Culture, and Public Policy
Professor Clyde Woods, Black Studies
INT94KZ: Anatomy of a Theatrical Production – Idiot's Delight
Professor Irwin Appel, Dramatic Art and Dance
INT94LB: Art and Activism
Professor Susan Derwin, German and Comparative Literature
INT94LE: Concise History of the Vampire
Professor Laurence Rickels, Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
INT94LO: Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) Along the California Coast
Professor Barbara Prezelin, Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology
INT94LP: Individuals or Institutions?: Sins, Smarts and Success in Social Theory
Professor John Mohr, Sociology
INT94LQ: On the Derivation of Music from Other Sources
Professor Clarence Barlow, Music
INT94LR: Detecting Climate Change: Effects on Plants and Animals in California & Worldwide
Professor Susan Mazer, Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology
INT94LS: Communication in Close Relationships
Professor Wald Afifi, Communication
INT94LT: The Elegant Universe
Professor David Morrison, Mathematics and Physics
INT94LU: Film Music Cognition
Professor John Hajda, Music
