HONOR 1010 - Ideas that Matter: Wild Opportunities and Wicked Problems

This year-long 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. This first-semester 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. Students are required to connect and engage with assigned readings and their conversations with one another by writing systematically in a reflective journal. In addition, students develop a graduation plan, and are connected with a team of mentors and a cohort of Honors peers.