FYI Students are given preferential placement in Guide Puget Sound (GPS) advising sections.
In GPS Courses, students experience community-building with a small cohort of peers and a faculty member as they work together on a project and pursue reflective discussions regarding the process of learning and the methods for college success. Each GPS section is designed around a broad theme as described below.
GPS Advising sections are .25 academic unit. Your GPS professor will be your advisor during the first year of your college career, and will remain your advisor until you declare your major and select an advisor in your major program. The FYI Program Director acts as your secondary advisor during your first year.
This course will explore issues concerning human impact on water and the environment in urban and suburban Tacoma. This course is a learning-by-doing class with no homework. The group will investigate systems set up in Tacoma to reduce chemicals from being released to the environment and the health of urban streams and lakes. Experiential components of the course will include visiting a local creek to observe salmon returning to spawn and a class project to devise and implement a plan to monitor pollutants in local creeks.
This course will explore some of the major issues from the science of well-being. Students will learn about several evidence-based happiness habits through in-class short readings and videos, no homework. Students will also try out some of theses practices. Depending on student interest, activities might include nature walks in a local forest, mindfulness meditation, practicing gratitude, cultivating self-compassion, conversing with community members off-campus, and more. Students will work together to brainstorm ways to share their key insights and reflections with the wider campus community, perhaps through a series of posters or a podcast.
“Dao” (tao,道) means way, or path, in Chinese. This GPS course will explore various paths to wellness and success in college, from yoga and meditation, to getting outdoors in Tacoma parks, to snuggling with (four-legged) animals, and using creative outlets to manage stress. The course project will explore the “dao” as it relates to Chinese architecture. Students will investigate the ways that nature, space, and power are conveyed, highlighted, and embodied in Chinese gardens, landscape architecture, temples, monuments, and imperial structures. Students will also construct some pre-designed model versions of a few sites, and then identify, model, create, and annotate a small-scale version of one other architectural site for display on campus.
Students learn when they take time to explore and notice. But “hustle culture” tells us that we should spend all our time with our noses to the grindstone, where we can’t explore or notice much. Research also tells us that spending time in green spaces can improve cognitive function. In this class, students will literally and figuratively escape from hustle culture. Students will explore the outdoors on campus and around Tacoma, and learn to notice things they might miss when they are too busy in “the grind.” This class has no homework—no grind here!—but instead will help us learn how to cultivate the mental spaces that help us do our best learning with others, in college and beyond. Expect to learn a lot about yourself, explore the green spaces of Tacoma, and build relationships with other students. Together, students will share what they have learned by creating a GPS scavenger hunt (complete with geocaches designed by the class!) that help other students take a break from the hustle and have some fun while they explore and notice the beautiful outdoor spaces of Tacoma.
The experience of college is a lot like learning a new board game: First you read a bunch of abstract rules that don’t quite make sense; then you start playing the game to see how it actually works; while fumbling around, you build and strengthen relationships with your fellow players; and, if you keep at it together, you get the hang of it and things get *really* fun. This GPS section will explore the different ways college works by thinking about the experience as if it were a board game. Students will also spend time together learning and playing different card and board games in order to think about the various ways they navigate new, unknown experiences and opportunities. The course project will involve playing these games with the ultimate goal of designing their own board game about their first experiences at and understanding of the University of Puget Sound.
Get to know Tacoma and the Puget Sound campus like an artist—a site-responsive artist. Instead of creating work that then ends up in traditional spaces such as galleries, studios, and theatres, site-responsive artists flip this process on its head. They start with a space, dive deep into the architectural, historical, contextual, practical, and aesthetic qualities of the site, and then develop a unique piece of work that activates its many layers. The outcome is that artists and audiences alike can re-see a space while also learning more about a place. Students in this course will collaborate as an ensemble to engage in the many histories of our campus and local community and develop an imaginative project that activates a site through artistic expression (visual, musical, theatrical, or dance). Come get your art on and learn about Tacoma in the process!