Freshman Seminars 2025 Winter

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

Gut Reaction: The Microbial World Within

Discover the hidden universe inside you in “Gut Reactions,” where we dive into the fascinating world of the trillions of bacteria residing in your intestines. This freshman seminar unravels how these microscopic inhabitants influence everything from digestion to mood, and their critical roles in promoting health or sparking disease. Through engaging discussions, hands-on activities, and the latest scientific discoveries, you’ll explore how our gut microbiome shapes who we are. Get ready to challenge your perceptions of bacteria and uncover the secrets of the most complex ecosystem you’ll ever encounter – within yourself. Join us on this journey to understand how gut feelings are more than just a metaphor!

Who Are You?: Negotiating Sociality Across Gender, Ethnic, Cultural, and Class Differences

If there is a “you” there, what is it? And how do you know? Put differently, ever wonder why it is easier to communicate with some people more than others, to be “yourself” in some sociocultural contexts more than others? This course seeks to explain issues related to social identity, including cultural, gender, and ethnic variables, that directly inform our ability to communicate and perform in social, working, and creative environments. We will look at sociocultural structures and their processes for meaning-making and societal consolidation, but also to research in social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, neurochemistry, and performance studies that helps us to contextualize and analyze the structures through a truly interdisciplinary approach. For instance, we will explore how people foster interiority and exclusivity in the interest of learning how established societal boundaries can be crossed with facility and felicity. Comprehension of the means by which people are socialized and inculcated into a particular ideology, sensibility, and aesthetics can be vital to developing rapport and liking between people and groups that occupy different demographics and might even be programmed in oppositional ways, such as between, generally speaking, men and woman, white and nonwhite, national and immigrant, western and eastern, class differences, and so on. This course will provide students with not only a richer understanding of sociality and the cultural constructions on which it mutually depends, but also tools with which to access, negotiate, and even benefit from them.

Be Divergent: The Practice and Process of Creativity

The creative thinking skills necessary in today’s fast-paced workplace require deeper exploration in the 21st century academy. This interactive curriculum offers a rich, inventive, stimulating environment to explore divergent idea generation and reflective response to problem solving. We will engage in creative exercises and games during class, opening each student to their own creative instincts.

Introduction to Empirical Analysis

The seminar will focus on introducing students to simple empirical strategies to help extract information from data, with an emphasis on topics in economics, business and finance. Each class will begin by introducing a particular topic or open problem, followed by discussion of possible solutions and examination of relevant data and empirical techniques. Lectures will conclude with results from empirical studies and discussion of their implications for the originally posed problem.

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!

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.