According to Associate Professor\u00a0of\u00a0Political Science\u00a0Stephen Dyson, the American career is undergoing a metamorphosis.<\/p>\n
Now more than ever, he says, college graduates need transferrable skills to navigate increasingly complex workplaces and job markets. They also must be able to adapt to the changing political and cultural landscape in the United States and abroad.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what drives Dyson\u2019s vision for the Humanities House, the living and learning community he has directed for the past five years.\u00a0Under his guidance, the House brings together 28 freshmen and 10 sophomore students with different majors under one roof, where they reflect on their academics and connect their experiences to the world they live in\u2014and to each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt says to the students that you\u2019re not just having a series of isolated experiences where you take a class and then you take another class that has nothing to do with the first one and then you go and hang out with friends,\u201d Dyson says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s that [in actuality], you\u2019re a whole human being and the things that you\u2019re doing in the classroom should be and can be meaningfully integrated with the residential experience that you have.\u201d<\/p>\n
UConn\u2019s learning communities connect students with common interdisciplinary interests and provide for-credit courses and extracurricular activities\u00a0centered\u00a0around each community\u2019s area of study.\u00a0The communities are\u00a0partnerships between academic affairs and residential\u00a0life, and\u00a0they are geared toward students at the beginning of their college careers.<\/p>\n
Humanities House\u2019s mission is to transform its\u00a0residents\u00a0into socially responsible citizens by fostering imagination, creativity, and possibility.<\/p>\n
In their freshmen year, Humanities House residents\u00a0enroll\u00a0in a weekly Humanities House Connections course, which is divided into two sections.<\/p>\n
The first\u00a0section,\u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s Making Me Think?\u201d, asks students to bring in a topic for discussion from the news, pop culture, or history and present it to the class.\u00a0The second, \u201cConnections,\u201d\u00a0asks students to draw connections between the courses they are currently taking.<\/p>\n
Students often\u00a0compare and contrast\u00a0math classes that are quantitative and analytical with English classes that are literary and philosophical, and they\u00a0say it helps them understand the applicability of their education.<\/p>\n
Cognitive science major Stephen Davey\u2019s\u00a0\u201921 (CLAS)\u00a0says he presented on\u00a0meme culture and how the\u00a0humor\u00a0of millennials and Generation Z \u201csmashes expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s cool that we get to choose our own topics to pursue, and present the things that we are interested in,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cI explained the complexity of the \u2018surgery on a grape\u2019\u00a0meme.\u00a0It\u2019s not traditionally funny,\u00a0yet\u00a0it was made\u00a0culturally relevant and shared hundreds of times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mohamed\u00a0Ndao\u00a0\u201921 (CLAS), an English major,\u00a0says\u00a0that he appreciated learning about disciplines\u00a0other than his own major.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I enjoyed] just hearing about topics that [my classmates] are really invested in and learning about their topic,\u201d he says. \u201c[Each student] comes in with all of their facts, and it serves as a gateway for more questions.\u201d<\/p>\n