Freshman Seminars

The College of Arts and Sciences will offer 11 Freshman Seminars in Fall 2009 for UM undergraduates in their freshman year.

Freshman Seminars are:

• Small-group classes with no more than 18 students
• Open to all UM undergraduates in their freshman year
• Courses that develop your abilities in intellectual inquiry and critical thinking
• Classes that hone your skills in effective oral and written communication
• Taught by distinguished faculty from the College of Arts & Sciences and the Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science
• Offered on a wide range of interesting topics
• Intended to expose students to real investigations in the methods and materials of a particular discipline
• Often interdisciplinary in nature and/or experimental in subject and design
• An excellent way to explore new interests; no prior background is expected
• A wonderful opportunity to develop more personal, long-term mentoring relationships with faculty than is possible in larger courses
• Three-credit courses that may be used to fulfill one of the general education requirements in the natural sciences, social sciences, literature, fine arts, philosophy, and religion

Listed below are descriptions of the ten seminars scheduled for Fall 2009.

• Download booklet

Social Sciences

• FSS 191: Arab Migrations and Cultural Representation: An Intercultural Dialogue
• FSS 192: Utopias and Disenchantments: Views from a Continent in Transition
• FSS 193: Oil, Geopolitics, and the Global Economy
• FSS 195: Extreme Weather Events
• FSS 197: Law, Public Policy and Ethics

Literature

• FLT 190: The James Family and American Culture
• FLT 191: Arguing, Persuading, Blogging: Public Talk in America

Philosophy/Religions

• FPR 190: The Nature of Social Reality
• FPR 191: Living Islam

Natural Sciences

• FNS 192: Sounds of the Sea
• FNS 193: Complexity Science: Two’s Company, Three is a Crowd