Current First-Year Seminar Courses

This course introduces students to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, specifically focusing on recent trends and current events among frontline employees – those who provide some essential service to the public.  Students consider equity and inclusion issues from the perspective of diverse and underserved populations.

This course introduces students to knowledge and facilitates building skills needed for adulting.  It covers topics such as identity and cultural self-awareness, financial literacy, business etiquette, basic negotiation techniques, communication protocols, organizing, planning, and career management.

This course provides an in-depth analysis of the construct of introversion and what it means to be an introvert in society. Students explore a variety of theories from psychology, social psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, and organizational behavior as they relate to interactions between individuals in their social lives, at school, and at work.

This course encourages students to carefully analyze their leadership styles, develop their sense of community, and recognize their responsibilities and commitments in the context of leadership for the common good and for purposeful change.

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This course uses instruction and hands-on projects to guide first-year freshman through the design thinking process to develop innovative and creative problem-solving skills. The design thinking process is a methodology for innovation that combines creative and analytical approaches and requires collaboration across disciplines and diverse backgrounds.

The women and men of World War II banded together to create one of the biggest innovation/invention booms of our time, but how did they pull it off? This class examines many of the inventions that are still in use today – radar, penicillin, the precursors to Bluetooth and WiFi, and more – and their impact on modern society.

This course provides students with an opportunity to articulate a current music advocacy philosophy while developing leadership skills for a variety of music activities and scenarios.

Discover through the great Marcussen pipe organ in Wiedemann Hall the multiplicity of tools and skills needed to make this giant instrument/machine function on multiple levels.

This course provides an overview of the role that the medical laboratory plays as a vital member of the healthcare team. In this course, students focus on the role that the medical laboratory plays in healthcare, the personnel who work in the laboratory, the different areas of the medical laboratory, and how lab results are interpreted and correlated with various conditions and diseases.

This course explores leadership through self-discovery, using Gallup’s CliftonStrengths Inventory. As students prepare their college journey, and ultimately the working world, this course helps them identify and embrace their leadership potential.

This course introduces basic knowledge and concepts of aging through engaging activities with peers designed with older adults in mind. Students gain new insight on the importance of connecting with each other and the older population through interactive activity both in the classroom and beyond.

This course is devoted to discovering humanity by placing personal and fictional narratives about justice, anger, and identity in dialogue with classic texts and historical contexts. Students in this course must be honors students or have permission of the Cohen Honors College.

This course invites students to explore their own roots and the experiences that have shaped who they are today. Students engage with others who have different stories from their own and examine shared interests and concerns about issues facing the world today.

By learning to critically read contemporary news headlines and articles, this course provides a path for students to explore the factors that influence the formation of one’s “opinions” and the ways in which “facts” can be used to support them.

This course empowers students with an understanding of how urban institutions and local communities are reciprocal stakeholders and share the civic and reciprocal responsibility of empowering one another, while assisting students with understanding how to better engage in this conjoined relationship both as current students and potential future citizens of this community or similar communities elsewhere.

Welcome to WUtopia! Working in teams, and in collaboration with international industry experts, students design a human-scale 15-minute city that has all the basic needs within a short walk or bike ride. This course is an opportunity to think critically about a large complex issue impacting the planet and systematically apply a process to creating an inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable city.

This course encourages students to explore the use of analytical thought and scientific methods in their daily lives. Students examine how bias affects perceptions, decisions, and outcomes of events. Using the concept that “every contact leaves a trace,” students learn to assess, perceive, and base philosophical decisions with an open mind.

This course teaches students to appreciate the cultural diversity located on the Wichita State campus. Students meet people from other cultures to help the students understand the world perspective of those other cultures. In addition, students learn speaking and writing skills to improve their own communication with people from other cultures.

This course explores much of what WSU has to offer and documents the student’s experiences using photographs and words to create an illustrated journal. Learn about the helpful people, places, and policies for thriving in college.

By learning to critically read contemporary news headlines and articles, this course provides a path for students to explore the factors that influence the formation of one’s “opinions” and the ways in which “facts” can be used to support them.

This course investigates the emergence and development of rock ‘n’ roll in the Anglo-American world through a variety of different lenses and disciplinary perspectives by examining how political, economic, social, and cultural trends have informed the production and consumption of popular music-making from its origins in the 19^th-century until the present day.

This course analyzes food and foodways of the world, paying attention to how cultural components work for each society and how they influence our perception of others. Students will analyze literature, films, art, and overall food representation.

Students in this course take a broad interdisciplinary approach to U.S. law. Domains of law such as constitutional law, tort law, and criminal law are introduced. The course covers legal procedures, argumentation, and reasoning. Cases and current events are used to illustrate basic concepts and raise philosophical issues.

This course focuses on critical reasoning, in which students focus on learning and practicing the tools required to understand and critically evaluate weird and extraordinary claims. Students work on understanding how arguments work, how to reconstruct them, and how to critically reason about both everyday arguments and arguments about unusual or extraordinary topics.

This course critically examines the ways in which the U.S. Census categories individuals and populations in the U.S. from various national origins such as Asian Americans. Students critique/deconstruct the model minority myth and explore various topics.

This course focuses on various forms of collective behavior. Involvement in these is as much a part of who people are as it is about their passions in life. Materials are presented through the theoretical lenses of sociology and social work. Topics of study include conformity, crowd/group behavior, rumors, public opinion, propaganda crazes, fads, fashions, mass hysteria, riots, mobs, disaster behavior, social protests, social movements, and social advocacy.

This course helps students critically examine how family is a fundamental part of American life and society. Students look at the diversity of families in American. Family is defined broadly to include, but not limited to, blood, marriage, adoption, and the desired connection among people to form a close familial bond.

The Harry Potter series has captured the love and imagination of youth and adults across the world. This course considers what a sociological view of the Wizarding World can teach students about their own culture.

This course is designed to facilitate students’ success particularly in understanding the basics of diversity – its construction, perception, and possibilities. Students learn the meaning of diversity in terms of being different and special according to societal norms.