This course builds upon the Freshman STEM Ambassadors Program Experience. The sophomore experience is approximately 50% research experience & 50% STEM AP programming.

The overall goal of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Ambassadors Program is to increase levels of retention and graduation of STEM students and increase the number of students who enroll in graduate studies or pursue careers in STEM fields Freshmen work in small groups with a pair of graduate student mentors that they select based on STEM interests. They engage in a variety of activities related to STEM research and engagement. Students experience the STEM research culture at the university explore research happening on campus at UMASS Amherst.

The OASIS Seminar for Transfers is designed for incoming transfers, to help them make a smooth transition, identify programs of interest, and be successful at UMass. Students will learn how to: navigate UMass requirements, opportunities, resources and procedures; clarify their choice of major; ensure timely progress toward graduation; and position themselves for careers and other post-graduate options.

Students will explore set/scenic design for live performance in a studio format. What is a performance space? We will investigate the idea of performance spaces where theatre can happen, as well as create some of our own. The main objective is to introduce the language, tools, and technical skills involved in the discipline of scenic design and to lay the foundation for further study while empowering students to actively engage as set designers in productions on campus after taking the course.

Introduction to acting. Includes all or some of the following: improvisation, theater games, monologues, scenes. Required of majors.

This course explores the art of contemporary theater and the power of live performance through a series of shows the students attend in person, along with theater projects they create in a group. Through engagement with both longstanding and new ways of making theater, students will gain exposure to how live theater is being made in the world today -- an exciting moment of new frontiers and forms. (Gen. Ed. AT)

A practical workshop, centered on a collaborative project, in which designers, dramaturgs and directors create a performance from scratch. The objective is to develop a shared vocabulary and common experiences in the basic process of transforming text or idea into performed event. All members of the studio may be asked to adopt the perspective of actor, director, designer, playwright, or critic.

The close reading of dramatic texts for contemporary production. Focus on finding original answers to directorial, design, and dramaturgical questions. Dramatic texts selected from a broad spectrum of world repertory.

This course will provide instruction of, and guided practice in, the basics of the art and craft of sound design for theater. It will explore the fundamental tools and processes essential to conceptualizing and implementing both the content of a sound design and the sound system for delivery of that content. At the end of the course, students will master the assembly and operation of simple sound systems, and an ability to interpret basic sound-system documentation.