CLCS 189 - Navigating New Places and Times: Successful Transitions to College Life

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

This course is designed particularly for students with a strong need and desire to develop knowledge, cultural practices, and resources that promote personal wellness, academic success, and leadership ability in the college environment. Specifically, it introduces first-year students to the learning community that is Vassar, helping students explore campus resources, understand college practices, and build skills necessary for successful navigation of, and contribution to, college life. Drawing on standpoint epistemology and testimonio, this course approaches the time of transition into college as a process of personal reinvention, in which the student simultaneously retains a sense of home and self, engages in personal exploration, and transforms to become a member of a new learning community. As students analyze a variety of texts, engage in exercises that encourage self-awareness, and cultivate a network of allies with peers, faculty, administrators, and staff, they are expected to explore scholarly and artistic ways of thinking, writing, collaborating, and being. Among the questions the course considers are: How is Vassar’s learning community organized, what are its conventions, and what are useful points of access? How might a student honor their roots while continuing to grow further away from them? This course is open to first-year students only, and one component of the course requires six sessions, at an off-campus site, in addition to regular class meetings. Candice Lowe Swift.

Prerequisite(s): Registration is by permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods plus extra periods.