This course is designed for students who have not selected a major or want to explore their options. The curriculum will use the Life Design model for major and career exploration. It is designed to be hands-on, engaging, and applicable to all first-year students.
For more information, please reach out to Amanda Morgan at a.morgan@wsu.edu
University-Wide (UNIV) 398 is an option for students from all majors to gain academic credit for their experiential learning activities at a business, government, or non-profit organization. By enrolling in this course while on an internship, students go beyond the common experiences of an employee and integrate a directed, reflective, academic component to help develop personal, professional, and academic competencies.
Are you interested in a health-related career, but aren’t sure which path to pursue? PUBHLTH 105 will introduce you to the wide variety of careers in the field of public health and a diverse group of public health professionals (including some WSU alumni) to begin building your professional network. PUBHLTH 105 will be held T/Th at 3:00-4:15 pm in CUE 219 (class number 15754).
PUBHLTH 101 will introduce you to the wide field of Public Health, including its history and mission. Get UCORE [HUM] credit and learn about how professionals in Public Health improve the lives of their communities! PUBHLTH 101 will be held T/Th 1:30-2:45 pm in Todd 307 (class number 15753).
Need to fulfill [BSCI] UCORE? Here is a fun class to take this fall! in Food Science 201 you will get an overview of the basic science behind foods; explores the discoveries, inventions, myths, and misconceptions related to foods; examines the evolution of foods and government regulations for conventional and organic foods.
Watch movies. Discuss movies. Make movies. This course is an introduction to the history of cinema combined with an introduction to movie-making tools and techniques. Complete your ARTS UCORE requirement in a fun and engaging environment!
This course explores how long and how well we live, as a social process. Though we often reflect on the biological, physiological, and genetic conditions that contribute to our health and the length of our lives, we will examine evidence that suggests social conditions shape health and mortality prospects for all of us. Did you know that otherwise healthy widowers have significant increased risks of death especially in the first 12 months following the death of a spouse? Or, on average, that the most affluent Americans live 5 years longer than the most deprived? The course uses “the sociological imagination” to explore the role and meaning of medicine in modern U.S. society.
What is it about America that makes us not only the most violent and murderous nation among the industrialized world, but an off the charts extreme outlier? Could it be something woven into the fabric of our very society? In this course we will explore America’s attraction to murder and mass mayhem and will unveil how this attraction is rooted in the cultural and social underpinnings of our society, and closely tied to the cultural ethos known as the American Dream. Through a sociological lens we will uncover how social position and larger social inequalities expose some individuals, groups, and communities to a much greater risk of murder, violence and mass mayhem than others. We will also examine how enduring social structures of power and privilege have shaped legal definitions, common stereotypes and public misunderstandings, and media representation of such crimes. Finally, we will compare our violent heritage to other countries in the industrialized world where peace seems to be the norm as opposed to violence (e.g, Iceland and our neighbors to the north, Canada).
“Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),” have become buzzwords in public discussions around workplaces and leadership. But what exactly does “DEI” and “inclusive leadership” mean? How do you really design effective DEI strategies and build inclusive leadership in the workplace? In this class, we will demystify the term “inclusive leadership” and learn structural approaches to creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. Five dimensions of inclusive leadership will be covered in this course: (1) defining inclusive leadership; (2) exploring multicultural and intersectional identities and experiences at work; (3) characteristics of inclusive leaders; (4) practices to foster inclusive interpersonal and team dynamics; and (5) practices for building inclusive organizations and leadership teams. This class will help prepare you to be a leader at work, even if you are not already in an official leadership position. We can all be leaders among our coworkers and in work groups. This course will especially teach you to be a leader who can support inclusivity in the workplace and knows how to build effective DEI practices and policies.
Sociology is typically known as the study of human interaction, however one thing that all humans must share and interact with is the environment. The focus of this course is on the inter-relationships between people and the natural environment including: the land, air, water, and other creatures that inhabit the planet. In particular, we will focus on the problems these inter-relationships pose. One cannot deny that environmental problems are problems of society. How we organize ourselves socially and the beliefs we carry with us have an impact on the natural environment. Additionally, environmental problems are problems for society that force us to rethink our current social arrangements and belief systems in the wake of changing environmental conditions. We focus in depth on social inequality in this course and how environmental problems are distributed unequally across the human community as well as how inequality is a source of environmental problems. Meets M,W,F 12:10-1:00.
This course examines sport through a sociological lens. Coverage of sport in the popular media typically involves the examination of an athlete or team, or it is designed to help improve performance in a sport. In contrast, this course examines sport from a sociological perspective, considering the social factors that influence sport. At the most basic level, social factors involve our personal relationships to other people and the information we give and receive from them. Social factors also include things we ignore, often because these factors are difficult to observe and out of our control. Organizations that structure our experiences with sport, technology, social institutions, culture, and aggregate group properties, such as inequality and diversity, play important roles in our lives. These larger sociological phenomena shape our opportunities and help determine what we experience and how we experience it.
This course focuses on using understanding of social psychological dynamics to communicate effectively as well as mindfulness-based practices on enhancing student well-being, engagement and learning. In the first part of the course, you will learn about strategies for conveying ideas to others. How do you get people to pay attention to what you’re saying? How do you get them to understand and remember it? In the second part of the class, we will learn about what happens when people try to communicate across difference and explore ideas for increasing the effectiveness of such communication. We will look at differences in temperament (introverted versus extroverted), race, class, gender, and political ideology, and examine how these differences affect interaction and communication. In the final section of the class, we will explore many effective methods that you can utilize in and out of the classroom to become more grounded and present, less reactive and stressed, and overall better communicative and connected human beings. Sociology 103 satisfies the COMM requirement for WSU’s University Common Requirements (UCORE), which is designed to help you develop and express ideas clearly, concisely, and effectively in media beyond purely written communication in ways that creatively adapt content to diverse contexts, audiences, and purposes. These skills will allow students to increase knowledge, foster understanding, or promote change in audiences’ attitudes or behaviors.
This course focuses on four main categories: Current job markets in the U.S: The course examines the overall music (and arts) job markets in the U.S. This content is designed to be particularly valuable for music and art major students, providing insights into diverse opportunities and strategies for successful job applications. Publications: Numerous music and art students often produce original works in various forms, yet most of them do not publish them. In this course, we introduce students to the spectrum of available publications, guide them on contacting publishers, provide insights into self-publishing, and offer strategies on effectively promoting their creative works. Contract and Negotiation: The course covers various contracts and negotiations, offering instructions on effective strategies to maximize your benefits. Copyrights and Loyalty: The course examines various intellectual properties, copyrights, and loyalties.
Learning the basics of audio engineering is a great place to start if you want to sound the best you can as a musician. Whether you’re recording yourself at home, recording in a recording studio, performing live, or experimenting with digital tools for composition or mixing, Audio Engineering I (MUS 364) can help level up your skills. A solid understanding of microphones, DAWs (digital audio workstations), signal flow, and acoustics can expand your musical horizons while saving you time and money as a working musician. In this class, you’ll get hands-on training in the Recording Studio and Concert Halls that will shape your knowledge and confidence in Audio Engineering.
Exploration of music through the lens of LGBTQ+ representation as a way of examining the personal and social struggles the community has endured for decades. (Crosslisted course offered as MUS 366, WGSS 366.)
A critical investigation of music’s role in social justice issues and the influence of social justice issues on the education and creative output of musicians.
Anti-racism is, at the same time, anti-heteronormativity, anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, and anti-imperialism. Anti-racism is social and global justice, linguistic justice, geo-political justice, disability justice, reproductive justice, and environmental justice, just to name a few. With this understanding and commitment, this undergraduate course is designed to help us address and interrogate the following questions: Why should the existence of the course on rhetorics of racism and anti-racism matter to the world, this planet, and the people we are aware or unaware of but co-exist with? What kinds of transformation are we daring to envision in society and ourselves through this course? Despite our situatedness in the institutional bureaucracy, which is far from equitable, how can classes like this help students and teachers alike?
What does it mean to be human? This class explores how contemporary preoccupations with social media, technology, and cultural identity have roots in 19th-century philosophy, literature, art, and science. Multimodal assignments include: “Performing Identity: A Visual Art Piece,” “Reading the Body: An Invention,” and “Making Meaning: A Personal Philosophy.” This course would be especially suitable for undecided students who would enjoy the chance to explore the human body through a creative humanistic lens.
This course is about how minorities in the United States are covered and portrayed in media entertainment and news. We will discuss biased, realistic, positive and balanced portrayals and their effects on profiling, health care, employment, social interactions, law enforcement, in the courtroom and in classrooms. Minorities to be discussed include racial and ethnic groups, immigrants, women, members of the LGBTQ and transgender communities, the elderly and religious groups. Practical applications for journalists and other communication professionals will be emphasized. (15308) TuTh 12:05-1:20 | MURR 307
This is a Humanities-designated course [HUM]. If you are interested in languages (even if you only speak English), you will learn about the origin and diversity of languages and how they reflect the communities who speak them.
This is a newly refurbished course and it has been revised with new foci and additions based on the last round (taught in spring 2024).
