First Year Seminar 191SBS01 - FYS- Topics in SBS

There's more than one way to find success in college and the path to getting there is different for every student. Our goals in this course are to connect with fellow students and the instructor as you become a contributing member of the community, both at UMass and beyond; start planning your individual academic goals and pathways toward achieving them; explore the different majors in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and start thinking like a social scientist.

Open to first-year students. First-year (R1ST) Corporations are among the most powerful institutions in the world. They produce and circulate uncountably many messages, images, and symbols, impacting what and how we think. What's more, corporations own widely-used mediums and mainstream channels of communication. This state of affairs is typically taken for granted in the United States, but should it be? What is at stake? How did we get here and where do we go from here? We will quest for answers to these and other questions of corporate power through the lens of communication in an effort to foster critical curiosity and freethinking suitable for college and beyond. Along the way, we will review learning strategies, introduce campus resources, build interpersonal connections, and support one another in a collective effort to establish healthy and balanced routines.