The First Year Experience-Explorations in the Liberal Arts
AUR’s First Year Seminar is a signature, two-semester sequence required of all first year students, irrespective of their choice of major.
Communal learning—where all first-years students encounter the same questions, experiences, and texts—and the critical discussions that emerge from small discussion seminars, make AUR’s first year seminar distinctive. FYS 101 introduces first time in college students to the culture of being in an American university in the heart of Europe. FYS 102, Explorations in the Liberal Arts: The Meanings of Empire, is intellectually stimulating and personally transformative for students. Team-taught by four of AUR’s distinguished full-time faculty from a variety of disciplines, the course challenges students to engage with the historical and theoretical meanings of imperial power, from the ancient world to the British Empire to the technological imperialism of mainstream and social media.
The course features lively lectures from global experts, thought-provoking group experiences, and on-site visits ranging from the Roman forums to Cinecitta studios, prompting students to examine how human experience is expressed, how meaning is made, by what rules we should be governed. The interdisciplinary approach fosters a habit of mind that students will employ throughout their studies at AUR and into life beyond the classroom.
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General Education at AUR
AUR’s general education requirements reflect the key concepts that make an American liberal arts university education unique. In addition to preparing students in the foundational skills of English writing, mathematics, the sciences, and the fundamentals of the Italian language, our general education program offers students the opportunity to develop the critical and creative capacity to explore larger questions of knowledge and meaning. Through required courses in the Arts and Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Creative Arts, students will learn an interdisciplinary approach to complex topics and to examine concepts from a variety of angles.
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AUR Students Abroad. The AURA Program
There are many opportunities to study abroad while you are studying at AUR. We have several direct exchange partners. You pay AUR tuition and can study at these institutions for either a semester or a summer session
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