MSU Undergraduate Education

Investigate and present on topics you have heard about, but have little knowledge. Topics in the past have included issues such as nanotechnology, China's economy and political candiates. Research is done in small groups with topics generated by students and instructors.

Ideas determine how people live, yet most people`s ideas are unexamined. One of the greater values of the academic environment is the thoughtful interaction of knowledgeable people about the ideas that have a profound effect on life and society. This seminar will help students to engage in open and thoughtful interaction about big ideas, to think critically, and to expose and explore their own assumptions as well as the assumptions of others. Students will engage actively in classroom dialogue and write a blog of ideas drawn from readings, dialogues, presentations, and movies. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus.

The United States is justifiably proud of its First Amentdment protections for free expression, and this course will explore those hard-fought rights and use them as a starting point to explore issues of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly around the globe. Students will explore the expression of these freedoms in an increasingly diverse society, as well as how our traditions have influenced the dialogue on individual rights and freedoms around the world. The course will explore recent events such as the Arab spring and the role that social media is playing in explanding free speech rights around the globe. Students should also expect to engage in lively and thoughtful discussions about current events, both national and interntional.

Using the nineteenth century cholera epidemics in London, England, as the central case study, we will examine how the cause of the epidemics was determined via critical reasoning long before the development of germ theory. This seminar will explore `critical reasoning` what it is and is not, how a critical reasoning strategy was (and is) applied within the disciplines of public health and epidemiology. Seminar will meet seven sessions throughout the semester as specified in the instructor`s syllabus.

What is leadership? How do organizations, communities, and busines ses really get things done? The dynamics of leadership are changing with people at all levels looking for opportunities to contribute. This seminar will explore how collaborative leadership can get results and how you can be part of a leaderful organization. Light on lecture, class-time will be devoted to group interaction, personal reflection and discussions about leadership.

This course will closely examine aspects of power and privilege as they play out in particular forms of personal and intimate violence, specifically sexual and relationship violence. Power realized through privilege based on gender, racial/ethnic identify, sexual identify, etc. significantly shapes how such violence is experienced. Particular emphasis will be placed on violence within campus communities.

This seminar is designed to help you become academically and personally successful while examining transitions from military life to civilian life, as well as examine the history of veterans in the United States. This seminar is open to all students, including veterans, active duty and their family members. The issues discussed in class are issues that pertain to veterans, transition from military to college life, and to personal growth. To succeed in this class, the students are expected to explore their view of human nature as it relates to change, as well as their personal values and experiences related to transition from military to civilian life.

You can be an entrepreneur in any major field! Explore the attitudes and charasteristics of entrepreneurship through stories of several successful entrepreneurs and guest speakers who got their start as undergraduates. This seminar covers topics such as creativity, innovation; risk, resourcefulness, and responsibility. Students will complete an innovation project and discuss ideas for possible entrepreneurial endeavors both during and after college.

Whether one is religious or not, we are living a time when it is critically important to understand religious attitudes other than one's own. Religious Studies helps us do that. This seminar is an introduction to the academic study of religion at the college level. It explores the varieties of both religions and of religious experiences know to humanity. It asks six basic questions. What kinds of religions are there in the world? How do they differ? How are they alike? That is the religious nature of humanity? Where have religions come from? Where are they going? Nicholas Wade's book "The Faith Instinct" will be our guide to these grand and sweeping questions. We'll read and discuss questions of spiritual aptitudes, religious trance, definitions of religion across traditions, how religions change and samples of modern Biblical and Koranic research.

This seminar examines elements of both individual and societal decision making. What does it take to effectively contribute and lead in the worlds of business, medicine and politics? Participants will be challenged to question, accept or reject conventions, and understand how to reach conclusions. By discussing and deliberating readings and films, students will gain insights in to effective leadership. Class will meet in 190 Radiology Building.

Some researchers study how students learn and transition into college. In this interactive seminar you will read, discuss, and debate what researchers and experts say about making a successful college transition and test it against your own experience. Seminar participants will design a plan that can enhance the first year college experience based on their analysis of discoveries made in the seminar. Class will 9/10-11/12 with a group project due 11/19.

This seminar is designed to provide participants with the basic framework needed to assist in the process of making discoveries about personal interests, majors and careers. Participants will be introduced to theories, tools and strategies for identifying strengths, values and skills needed to make effective academic, decisions. Additionally, the seminar is structured to provide participants with opportunities to research current literature related to academic/career decision making, to discuss assigned reading materials, to analyze data from self assessment instruments and to develop an academic portfolio which highlights the major/career exploratory inventory of information gathered throughout this seminar. Restricted to no preference majors.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program. This class MEETS on Wednesday, August 29.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program. This class MEETS on Wednesday, August 29.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restircted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program. This class MEETS on Wednesday, August 29.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as spsecified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal and career decisions that students face in college with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restriced to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career dicisions that students fact in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your collegr career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal, and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Class will meet for 10 sessions as specified in the instructor syllabus. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

About 100 years ago, human thought advanced through a broad revolution called modernism in physical science, psychology, philosophy, and art. That vanguard consciousness needs to be understood by everyone today, so this seminar will introduce you to the context and breakthroughs (scientific papers, literary texts, artwork, and movies) of modernism. We will discuss special relativity and wave-particle duality in physics, the unconscious mind in psychology, completeness in mathematical logic, and a brief philosophy of science, while relating these ideas to parallel advances in the visual arts (impressionism, cubism, dada, and surrealism) and literature (selections from Dostoevsky, Rimbaud, Conrad, Joyce, Remarque and Woolf). These interdisciplinary discussions will help to build our capacity for analytical thinking and integrative reasoning, and we will use these ideas as launching-points to discuss the meaning of personal integrity and authenticity in our human endeavors.

Students will be introduced to the realities of scientific research and interact with faculty researchers from a range of disciplines. The seminar will meet weekly and also includes three site visits to research facilities around Michigan, at times to be arranged. The seminar is the first stage of PURL, the Program for Undergraduate Research in the Life Sciences and is recommended only for students who have an interest in the program. PURL is open to students from all majors with an interest in life sciences research. For more information on PURL, see: msu.edu/~shingle9/….

Concerns about biosecurity, food quality, food safety, and environmental sustainability are greater than ever before. The recent availability of new technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning system (GPS) and nanotechnology are powerful tools for such things as land use planning, watershed mapping, monitoring managed ecosystems and food supply quality control and management. This seminar features interactive demonstrations and uses of these new technologies and discussions on how they relate to food, environmental and biological systems. Students will learn how to determine if their food and environment are safe and how both can be safeguarded. This class offers fun and hands-on experiences with robotics, GPS units and biosensors. Students interested in learning more about rewarding engineering, technology and science careers should enroll in this section.

This seminar examines elements of both individual and societal decision making. What does it take to effectively contribute and lead in the worlds of business, medicine and politics? Participants will be challenged to question, accept or reject conventions, and understand how to reach conclusions. By discussing and deliberating readings and films, students will gain insights in to effective leadership.

Explore chemistry through presentations and discussions with scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who work at the level of atoms and molecules-the alphabet of all matter-to understand and improve human technologies and their impacts. Without chemical insights, the 'GREEN', issues of recycling, environmental pollution, global warming, and energy choices cannot be addressed. The series will include several field trips to relevant businesses and labs around Michigan. Class grading will be based on attendance and a final paper/presentation.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees us the right to free expression; however, the interpretation of our rights to free speech and a free press continue to evolve. This course offers students the chance to explore how our history has shaped today, including what these freedoms mean in an increasingly diverse society. The course will assess the impact that contemporary challenges such as terrorism have had on free speech, as well as the impact that changing economics and new technologies are posing to a free press. The class will include explorations of relevant issues in the international, national, state and local news.

Using the nineteenth century cholera epidemics in London, England as the central case study, we will examine how the cause of the epidemics was determined via critical reasoning long before the development of germ theory. This seminar will explore `critical reasoning` what it is and is not, how a critical reasoning strategy was (and is) applied within the disciplines of public health and epidemiology. Seminar will meet seven class sessions throughout the semester as specified in the instructor`s syllabus.

This seminar is designed to help you become academically and personally successful while examining transitions from military life to civilian life, as well as examine the history of veterans in the United States. This seminar is open to all students, including veterans, active duty and their family members. The issues discussed in class are issues that pertain to veterans, transition from military to college life, and to personal growth. To succeed in this class, the students are expected to explore their view of human nature as it relates to change, as well as their personal values and experiences related to transition from military to civilian life.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.

This seminar is designed to build a foundation of knowledge for your college career as a learner and future leader. We'll explore academic, social, personal and career decisions that students face in college, with a focus on the first year. Restricted to students in the College Achievement Admissions Program.