This course is designed for new transfer students, and will provide the tools and supports necessary to succeed in upper-division coursework in the Arts and Humanities at Berkeley. Working together in collaborative hands-on workshops in the Active Learning Classroom, students will master the major skills of humanistic study: critical reading, active listening, literary and cultural analysis, examination, participation, research, writing, and revision. Learning from panels of senior transfer students and visiting professors, this class will build a large and supportive cohort of new students, a community that is astoundingly diverse in its make up but united in its aim to make Berkeley an intellectual home.

Welcome to Berkeley! Transfer Foundations is a new kind of course that is designed to help you make the transition to your Berkeley major. The class will focus on the core skills you will need to thrive in your Humanities classes. It will also focus on building a community in the classroom: not only will we be working together in small groups as well as the large lecture format, but we will also build an online community to share ideas and offer each other support. The title of the course is “Ways of Reading, Ways of Seeing.” Something you will encounter at Berkeley that is often unfamiliar to transfer students is the expectation that you will “close read” works of literature, paintings and other images, buildings, and innumerable other objects of study. Indeed, when Berkeley Arts and Humanities alums are asked “What skill that you learned at Berkeley has most contributed to your successful career?”, they invariably reply “close reading.” What does “close reading“ really mean? In this class, you will learn by doing: we’ll read prose and poetry; look at works of art (and visit the Art Museum); and analyze short films and film clips. As you do so, you will develop an eye and an ear for detail: new ways of reading and seeing. As we work together on building your close reading skills, we will also work on turning the fruits of your reading and seeing into essays. We will talk about how to interpret prompts, how to plan an essay, and how to interpret your observations in order to build an argument or explication. We will also spend time on midterm and final exams: what kinds of exams do Humanities professors typically give at Berkeley? How can you succeed at the dreaded “Identification Exam”? This class will be a collective and interactive effort. Not only will you leave better-prepared to study the Humanities, but you will also become part of a learning community—a network of peers and colleagues on which you can draw in future.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.