First-Year Seminar
Each year, the Office of Liberal Education, in conjunction with programs and departments, sponsors a series of First Year Seminars. First Year Seminars are capped at 20 students, which ensures that class members can work closely with their peers and with the instructor on studies that highlight the social significance of a liberal education. Primarily reserved for Miami’s newest students, all First Year Seminars meet Global Miami Plan foundation requirements.
Upcoming First-Year Seminar Opportunities
Fall 2012
GLG F108 Geology and Geopolitics: Silk Road (3)
Examines changes in cultural, historical, and
natural landscapes along the Silk Road and explores how these have affected the
rise and demise of civilizations and world cultural heritage. Focuses on the
ancient Silk Road nations in today’s global economy, transfer of information
technology, and geopolitical development in the Middle East and Near East. MPF: IIIB,
IVB, Cul. CAS: D-PHY.
MBI F107 Microbes and Diseases (3)
Infectious diseases have plagued humankind
throughout history, but only in the last 50-75 years have scientists elucidated
the mechanisms microbial pathogens use in the process of causing disease. An
appreciation of these mechanisms is important when microbiologists, physicians,
and policy makers design strategies for the treatment and control of infectious
diseases, especially today as we face the medical, economic and social problems
raised by the AIDS pandemic and the threatened avian influenza pandemic. MPF: IVA.
CAS: D-BIO.
PHL F110 Cultural Differences: Worlds Apart? (3)
Using philosophical theories about human
experience, the world, our minds, and our knowledge of the world, the class
will critically explore the idea that people with fundamentally different
beliefs may live in different worlds, and will examine implications of this
idea for concepts of truth and objectivity. This idea and its implications will
be used to discuss cultural conflicts and strategies for conflict resolution. MPF: IIB,
Cul. CAS: B-PHL.
PSY F104 Experience, Thinking, and
Emotion: How What You Experience Influences What you Think and Feel (3)
We
often talk about the warmth of love, the brightness of intelligence, and the
roughness of a negotiation. In this course, we will examine research that
suggests that these abstract concepts are grounded in our concrete experiences.
For example, studies have shown that the ambient temperature of a room affects
how lonely we report feeling, and that we estimate the current temperature to
be lower when we have been socially rejected. As part of the course, students
will design and run a study related to the course material. MPF: IIC. CAS-C-SOC.
WGS/LAS F110 Growing Up Latina:
Stories of Adaptation and Resistance (3)
Reading
and discussion of fiction and non-fiction by contemporary U.S. women writers
from varied Latina/Hispanic backgrounds (Mexico, Central America, the
Caribbean) with particular attention to the transition from childhood to
adulthood in “mainstream” U.S. culture. How do these writers re-create the
problems and successes of this transition in a situation of cultural
“otherness”? How does the immigration experience affect this transition? What
commonalities and differences emerge from these works? In addition to the
written works, we will explore film, music, and other media in order to better
understand the situation of Latinas in the United States. MPF: IIB, Cul. CAS-B-HUM.
WST F104
Making Sense of a Complex World (3)
This course is about the big picture – past,
present, and future; how the forces it reveals will affect your life; and how
to confront its complex challenges using an interdisciplinary approach to
decision making. We will examine the interconnected elements of globalization
(through Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree) that shape our
contemporary world; the environmental, economic, and technological forces
driving the rise and fall of civilizations (through Jared Diamond’s Collapse);
and the interlinked problems of population growth, continued globalization, and
climate change (through Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded) that
challenge the world you will inherit. MPF: IIC. CAS-C-Other Social
Science.
WST F112 Rites of Passage: The
Journey to College and Liminality (3)
This course focuses on placing
students’ personal experiences of coming to college within a larger
methodological, theoretical framework. A variety of literary forms, from
fairy tales to autobiography to anthropological essays, expose students to
ideas about not only turning points and rites of passage but also about the
various kinds of written artistic expressions about significant transitions in
a person’s life. Students are asked to come to some understanding of
various conceptions of rites of passage and to reflect upon their own life
experience of being "in transition." The course also features a
multi-step, semester-long, creative writing process. MPF: IIB,
Cul. CAS-B-Other Humanities.
Spring 2013
BOT F107
Evolution: The Great Debate (3)
Investigates, critiques, and analyzes two of the dominant paradigms in this topic area: examines the philosophical differences between religion and science. MPF: IVA. CAS-D-BIO.
