First-Year Seminar

Students enrolling in the Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science degree program are required to take one first-year seminar course as part of their general education requirements. Students transferring to UMW with credits earned after the student had matriculated to another college or university (in other words, not through high school “dual enrollment” courses) do not have to meet the first year seminar requirement. Transfer students with fewer than 30 credits may take a first-year seminar course as an elective, if so desired.

Any course listed as FSEM 100 (First-Year Seminar) fulfills the first year seminar requirement, as does History 201, First-Year Seminar in European History, or History 202, First-Year Seminar in American History. (See the History section of this Catalog.)

100 – First-Year Seminar (3)

Prerequisite: Freshman standing (30 credits or less). The first-year seminar introduces students to the pursuit of intellectual inquiry. Students will study a non-traditional topic in a non-traditional way while exploring the concept of a liberal arts education. Specific topics will vary from course to course. Transfer students enrolling at UMW with more than 30 credits may not take this course.

List of FSEM 100 topics approved for offering in 2012 – 2013 (as of May 1, 2012).

Note: all of these topics may not actually be offered in the 2012-2013 academic year.

American Detective Fiction

Autism in Contemporary Literature and Film

Banned and Dangerous Art

Beauty and Brains: Women in the Sciences

Biological Terrorism: Threat or Reality?

Borders, Barrios, and Biases

Broadway Babies: Stephen Sondheim and the American Musical

Can Machines Think?

Celluloid Vampire: Dracula from Page to Screen

Chemistry and War

Cinderella to Harry Potter

Cold Case: Theatre Mysteries

Consumer Chemistry

Computers, Culture, and Thought

Critical Thinking and the Internet

Cryptology

Culture and Liberty

Culture Works and The Graphic Novel

Daily Life in Ancient Rome

Economics of Everyday Life

Elizabeth I: Representations of the “Virgin” Queen

Energy Resources in the 21st Century

Environmental Justice

Escher Math

Ethics and Literature

Finding Fashion

French New Wave: Cinema and Society

Freud

Games People Play

GlobalizationHolocaust in German and U.S. Cultures

Human Animal

I, Robot: the Pursuit of the Synthetic Mind

Imagining Africa

I’m Not a Feminist, but . . .Infographics

Is Trying to be Happier as Futile as trying to be Taller?

International Short Fiction by Women

James Farmer, the Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement, and the Great Debaters

Journey to the Underworld in Greek Myth and Modern Film

Kitchen Chemistry

Lies of Spies: Espionage as Fact, Fiction and Theatre

Literature of the Francophone World

Lost and Forgotten Manuscripts of Early Christianity

Mad Scientists, Bad Scientists, and Evil Geniuses

Major Germanic Myths

Maps and Politics

Mashup and Remix: the Future of Creativity in Cyberspace

Mathematics of Chaos

Mozart and Amadeus

No Place like Home: Housing and Society

Not So Elementary After All: American Detective Fiction

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of Mexico

Parasites: Monsters within

Physics for Future Presidents and World Leaders

Pirates, Liars, and Pigeons: Not Your Typical Math Course

Politics, Culture, and The Global Media

Profit and Accountability 

Race and Revolution

Radical Environmental Activism

Revolution and Cinema in Iran

Russian Novel

Science, Sound, and Music

Scientific Discoveries

Six Degrees: the Science of a Connected age

Stages and Contexts of 9/11: Dramatic Literature and Contemporary History

TED.com – An Exploration of Ideas Worth Sharing

The Bad Seed: Roots of Evil?

The Videogame Canon: The Most Important Videogames Ever Made

Travel Writing

Virtual Vernacular: Recording Community Music

Water Resources

We’ve Come a Long Way, baby . . . or have we?

Feminist issues from the second wave to the present

When Americans Came Marching Home: The Veteran in U.S. History

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