Core Seminar I for First-Year Students

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Welcome to the Grand View family! Fall 2022 will be a time for you to navigate your new home and all of the new experiences and relationships that go along with it. This course will help you explore and learn the skills, attitudes and behaviors that you’ll need to thrive at GV in topics such as critical thinking, study/learning strategies, self-care, wellness, time management, and campus engagement. We'll learn how to set ourselves up for success, how to overcome challenges, and how to balance learning with fun.

Why do people lie? And why are even really good liars just as susceptible as the rest of us to deception, wacky superstitions, phony scientific claims, and all manner of cheap hustles? This fun, skill-building first-year seminar will explore the mechanics of lying, the psychology of magical thinking, and our human tendency to be fooled and even to fool ourselves. We’ll also look at cons and explore our love affair with the huckster and scam artist, all while building critical thinking, writing, and information literacy skills needed for success at the university level. So what do you think? Ready to get fooled?

This course will challenge students with the concept of sustainability, its implications, and its implementation in their personal lives. We will start by analyzing your preparation for sustainability in college and beyond. We will also consider how our community, country, and world can be sustained. We will follow your interests and consider how to sustain society, political systems, economic systems, the environment, and more. We will discuss sustainability from all perspectives.

One commonality among many countries throughout the world is the celebration of holidays. While some are celebrated in many countries, others such as Bonifacio Day and Croatia’s Statehood Day, are celebrated in only a few. Holidays provide a rich, fun way for us to learn about a country’s history, traditions, food, and music. In this course we will explore the world by investigating numerous holidays. We will partake in these traditions as a way of experiencing life as locals. These activities will open up our minds and hearts to the wide variety of celebrations that occur around the world each day.

Jesus? Moses? Noah? We know these guys, but what about the women? This class will focus on women in the Bible—the courageous, faithful, violent, and sexual roles women plan in the biblical narrative. We will also consider how race and class impact our interpretation and understanding. We’ll visit various religions’ places of worship and observe women’s roles in religious communities today. No prior religious knowledge is necessary to be successful in this class.

When we think about going off to college, we tend to base it off what we see in movies like Animal House, Old School, and Neighbors. Those movies feature partying, skipping class, and FREEDOM! What we don’t associate with college is the development of our identities that takes place. In this course, we will take a deep dive into identity formation and student development by using movies like Boy Erased and Perks of Being Wallflower, TV shows like Grown-ish, and other pop culture artifacts . Based on this, we will learn different strategies and explore resources to help you come into your own over the next four years.

Students in this course will examine what the zombie apocalypse means to society, culture, the future, and ourselves. Is a zombie apocalypse a theological crisis? Is it a test of morality, to determine whether one can remain “human,” to say nothing of “good,” in a world filled with monsters? Is it an examination of societal fears to soften the blow of discussing racism, capitalism, the military-industrial complex, genetic engineering, loneliness? We will examine these questions by watching TV shows and movies, playing video games, and reading books.

Drawing inspiration from the Netflix series Black Mirror, we will explore the ethical, social, and economic impact of technology on our personal and professional lives. From job automation to the impact of social media, from pervasive advertising to the psychology of video games, the influence of technology is nearly inescapable in a developed country such at the United States. Are we a better world because of the internet—with knowledge at our fingertips as well as the capability to bully or be bullied? How much of a threat does job automation pose? Can we really learn, connect, and relax when we are constantly receiving notifications?

In the past you were probably told when to go to bed, what to eat, and when to study. As an incoming college student though you will find you have a lot more say over what you do and don't do. The exciting thing is that you will have lots of new opportunities to make and remake yourself, but what does that mean? And how can you make sure you're making the right choices to help you be success in your classes, on the field, in work, and beyond? This seminar will explore the choices you have made to get you here and the choices you will make moving forward. We will focus on motivation, mindset, and the strategies that lead to academic and life-long success.