HONOR 1030 - Ideas that Matter

This colloquium introduces first-year Honors students to ideas that can help frame their educational experiences and opportunities at the University of Utah. The course is based on students’ participation in seminar-style discussions around major societal challenges and the meaning of a good life. The first half of the course emphasizes experiential learning through deep listening across diverse perspectives and interdisciplinary perspectives around broad challenges (wicked problems and wild opportunities embedded in climate change and proposals about how we can respond to that change), and lays a framework for students to think about their educations at a meta-level and in relation to major societal challenges. In the second half of the course, students will hear from guest speakers in a range of academic and professional walks of life to broaden their perspectives, and take a central role in considering more fundamentally issues around the nature of a good life. This course is reserved for current students who were admitted to the Honors College after a successful first semester at the University of Utah, and has been adapted to a one-semester format.