Transfer Transition Courses

(For Transfer Transition Students with 30-89 credits)

Transfer Transition:  Contemplation

Transfer Transition has one term to introduce new students to the approaches of the University Studies Curriculum. This Transfer Transition course will explore some of the singular consequences of living a life of faith. Action and contemplation are two defining points along a continuum of response to the exigencies of living a moral life informed by religious commitment. Men and women affiliated with a number of different faith traditions - from the Dalai Lama to Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day, Howard Thurman and Abraham Heschel - have taught that the experience of the divine is inextricable from engagement with the world. In the context of the goals of the University Studies Program and through reading these authors and others, viewing films, and performing a community service project, we will investigate the connection between the aspiration for social justice and the heart of the contemplative experience.

Co-requisite:

Mentored Inquiry. (For students who are able to count this course for Sophomore Inquiry credit, the course links to the Morality Cluster)

Transfer Transition: Frankenstein

Transfer-Transition has one term to introduce new students to the approaches of the University Studies curriculum. As such, the goals of this term are focused on the theme of multidisciplinary approaches to understanding a core text and the transition of strands of inquiry within a social and historical context. Mary Shelley’s story of Frankenstein and his Creature offers rich opportunities for understanding these paradigms and especially the changing spectrum of appreciation and approach to a work of art, whether it be through literature, science, ethics or film. The exploration will be investigative, thoughtful and fun.

Co-requisite: 

Mentored Inquiry. (For students who are able to count this course for Sophomore Inquiry credit, the course links to the Popular Culture, Freedom, Privacy and Technology, and Nineteenth Century Studies clusters.)

MENTORED INQUIRY

This course is a co-requisite for Transfer Transition courses. Assignments from the main inquiry sessions are developed and discussed in mentored inquiry sessions, which are facilitated by a Graduate Mentor who is a PSU graduate student.