Freshman Seminars 2025 Spring

WebReg registration begins each quarter on Monday of the 8th week of instruction. Windows open from 7 a.m. through 7 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday.

University Studies

Enrollment in Uni Stu 3 will be restricted to freshmen until the day the 18-unit enrollment limit is lifted. After this date, enrollment in Uni Stu 3 will be open to all lower-division undergraduates.

For more information on the Freshman Seminars, please visit Freshman Seminar website or call the Undergraduate/Undeclared Advising Office at 949-824-6987. Students may enroll in a maximum of three freshman seminars during their entire time at UCI.

Unlocking the Leader Within: Leadership Principles for Pre-Health Students

How do you find a great mentor in the healthcare field? What should you do to optimize your shadowing experience? How can you avoid burnout while pursuing your professional goals? What are the best practices for leading a student organization? Leadership principles can help you successfully optimize your experience as a student and future healthcare trainee. This course is an introduction to important leadership principles such as emotional intelligence, finding your why, position-less leadership and conflict resolution.

A Gentle Introduction to Robot Motion Planning

The objective of this seminar series is to introduce UCI freshman students to the world of robot motion planning. A robot’s ability to plan its movement without explicit human guidance is a basic prerequisite for robotic autonomy. The objective of motion planning algorithms is to enable an autonomous mobile robot to determine its movements in a cluttered environment to achieve various goals while avoiding collisions. This seminar series cover deterministic classical motion planning algorithms, including sensor-based planning, decomposition and search-based planning. The course intends to expose undergraduate students (Engineering and Computer Science) to solution approaches to problems that they may encounter in emerging technologies and disciplines such as autonomous driving and transportation, smart manufacturing, and general mechanical and aerospace robotic applications.

Drugs

The majority of individuals in modern society will use drugs at some point in their lives. Most drugs will be taken for legitimate medical purposes, while some are used recreationally. In a very basic manner, this course will introduce students to human physiology, how drugs work and where they come from, some common health issues and the drugs used to treat them, and some well-known recreational drugs.

Crafting Software: Opportunities and Challenges in Software Engineering

Embark on a 10-week exploration in “Crafting Software,” a dynamic course delving into the ever-evolving landscape of software engineering. Uncover historical foundations, unravel the mysteries of AI, and understand the human dimensions in collaborative coding. Navigate the intricate balance between software and business, learn about modular design, software testing, and requirements engineering. Traverse privacy and security concerns, ethical dilemmas, and gain insights into future trends. Conclude with stimulating discussions, reflecting on innovations, challenges, and opportunities in the field. Join us in “Crafting Software,” an immersive journey exploring the art and science of software engineering with a keen focus on innovation and the future.

Art of Collaboration and Decision Making

The Art of Collaboration and Consensus Decision Making features students working together in pairs and small groups to create meaningful collaborative experiences. Students will develop their communication skills via exercises that include active listening, storytelling, body awareness activities, asking questions and receiving feedback. By collaborating with others and reflecting on those interactions, students come to recognize their impact on group decisions which may be demonstrated in writing, drawing, film making and other creative activities.

Pathophysiology of Human Vision

This series of discussions include summaries of eye evolution, eye embryology and common ocular anomalies, normal adult ocular anatomy and physiology and histopathology of common ocular diseases including refractive errors, color vision, stereopsis and visual perception. This information should be valuable for any career in health sciences including nursing, medical technology, dentistry and medicine.

Photography Techniques

This seminar will discuss the physics of modern-day digital cameras and lenses and will discuss different photography composition techniques for portrait, landscape, and other types of photos. The seminar will also explore analysis methods including software such as Lightroom. This seminar is part technology and part creative applications. A genuine interest in photography and an access to at least an entry level DSLR is essential to get the most out of this seminar series.

BUBBLES

Teaching Economics with Movies

Economics is a way of looking at the world. Economists see economic phenomena, and economic lessons, everywhere. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that motion pictures are full of economic phenomena and economic ideas. This seminar will use movies as a way to introduce you to some of the basic concepts in economics and to evaluate critically how those concepts are embodied in specific movies. By the end of the seminar, you should have a good sense of what economics is and how economists think about the world.

Science-Backed Cooking for a Thriving Microbiome

Our hope for you as students in this class is that you will become well-versed in how to eat in a way that protects and promotes your health and your microbiome. This unique course will be held in the Mussallem Teaching Kitchen at UC Irvine, with opportunities to learn how to cook microbiome-promoting meals in a Great British Bake show style format. Microbiomes are communities of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microbes that live in a particular environment. Due in part to huge advances in sequencing technology, there has been enormous progress in understanding microbiomes in the last 10-15 years. Cooking whole foods does not have to be expensive, and you will learn memorable culinary secrets from this teaching team, a microbiome scientist and integrative health expert chef. You will learn major microbiome science discoveries and technologies, and become an ambassador of good microbiome science in a world full of questionable claims being made by companies and the media. (*note: Because of the time needed for cooking activities, this class will meet 5 times over the quarter for ~2 hours, instead of once a week for 50 min). This is the planned schedule: 11a-1pm on in the Mussallem Nutrition Center at UC Irvine (856 Health Sciences Rd, Irvine, CA 92617, parking & directions here).

Tuesday, April 8, 2025 (lecture & intro)

Tuesday, April 15, 2025 (cook)

Tuesday, May 6, 2025 (cook)

Tuesday, May 20, 2025 (lecture/tea)

Tuesday, June 3, 2025 (cook)

How Comedy Works

In this course, we explore the ins and outs of comedy. Learn the elements of what makes a joke funny and research the various ways we can make people laugh. Comedy can do so much more beyond entertainment, investigate the positive impact it can have on our lives and work.

Authentic Health Career Exploration

Ready to embark on a fulfilling health career that resonates with your values and goals? Our course, tailored for first-generation and marginalized students, offers a unique journey of self-discovery. It’s designed to bridge pathway gaps and provide essential resources, empowering you to unlock and explore genuine health career potentials. Embrace an empowering path towards becoming a future healthcare leader, where critical assessment meets personal aspirations. Discover and align your career with your identity and goals. Your authentic path in the health professions awaits!

From Ashes to Life: Lucille Eichengreen’s Memories of the Holocaust

Lucille Eichengreen’s memoir, From Ashes to Life, relates her journey as a young Jewish girl through Nazi Germany and Poland – including confinement in the Lodz Ghetto and internment at Auschwitz, Neuengamme, and Bergen-Belsen. Her journey began in 1933, when she was eight years old and witnessed the beginnings of Jewish persecution in Hamburg, the city of her childhood, and ended in 1945 back in her hometown, when she helped authorities arrest perpetrators of the Holocaust. The seminar will discuss Lucille Eichengreen’s remarkable journey, the impact of the Holocaust on the world today, modern parallel’s, and what humanity could do to prevent horrific events like the “Final Solution” from recurring in the world in the future.

Intro to AI

TBA

Unaffiliated

DROP: The deadline to drop courses is the end of Week 2 by 5:00PM. Drops can be made in WebReg.
CHANGE: The deadline to change grade option or variable units is the end of Week 2 by 5:00PM. Changes can be made in WebReg.
ADD: The deadline to add courses is the end of Week 2 by 5:00PM. Adds can be made in WebReg.