All first-year students, no matter the major, will take Tackling a Wicked Problem and Composition in their first year.
*You do not need to take both of these classes in the first semester.
- Tackling a Wicked Problem:
- All students who enroll with fewer than 24 credits must take Tackling a Wicked Problem (TWP).
- This course introduces students to an educational model focused on collaboratively creating projects that reach beyond the walls of the classroom in some way.
- Students learn about using their education to make a difference in the world.
- The course introduces the Habits of Mind (HoME) that will be developed over the course of the General Education program at PSU.
- The course provides students with their first experience with PSU’s Integrated Cluster model of education.
- Each section of the course focuses on a wicked problem, a societal issue that is difficult or impossible to solve.
- i.e.: human trafficking, homelessness, food insecurity, ocean plastics, climate change, etc.
- Through this experience, students begin to build the repertoire of intellectual skills needed for university-level work.
- Composition:
- This course is intended to help students become responsible writers who can take charge of their own writing process.
- Students learn how to draft, respond to feedback from peers and instructor, revise, and edit successful college prose.
- Students also learn to read comprehensively and effectively in order to relate to ideas and arguments in their writing and thinking.
Other First-Year Recommended Courses:
- Mathematics Foundations:
- Students become aware of the importance of mathematics and its application to fields as diverse as art, music, and science.
- Many majors require specific math courses.
- Because of this, we recommend undeclared students waiting at least until their second or third semester to take a math class.
- We encourage all incoming students to take our Math Placement Assessment, so their advisor can make the appropriate math course recommendation.
- Directions Courses:
- The Directions component of the HoME Experience program is intended to introduce students to different ways of considering and understanding human experience which they can apply as they seek meaning in their lives.
- These courses focus on a particular issue or problem or topic of interest within the discipline, especially a topic relevant to students’ own lives.
- There are four Directions course categories:
- Creative Thought:
- Encourages students to recognize beauty in its many manifestations and to become aware of formal elements of creative expression.
- Past and Present:
- Encourages students to realize that different times shape different views of the world.
- Scientific Inquiry:
- Students investigate the distinctions between rational thinking and anecdotal argumentation and develop an understanding that answers are never final, but always subject to revision.
- Self and Society:
- Encourages students to inquire into multiple dimensions of self, including the social, physical, emotional, and cognitive, and to investigate the interactions between individuals and the spatial, temporal, political, economic, and technological aspects of the social environment.
- Creative Thought:
