The following information pertains to the last time this program was offered. If you would like to be notified via e-mail when new information about this program is available, subscribe to the Summer Session and Special Programs e-mail list.
Freshman Summer Start
June 21-August 5, 2008
Courses
As a Summer Start student, you'll take two undergraduate courses. The first is a three- or four-credit course chosen by you from the six-week summer session offerings (perhaps in the area in which you intend to major).
The second course, in which all Summer Start students participate, is taught by Professor Migiel. Comparative Literature 1118, Life in an Age of Moral Complexity (three credits), is a special Freshman Writing Seminar, and it will fulfill one semester of Cornell's Freshman Seminar requirement for any college in the university. This course will meet Monday through Friday from 10:00 to 11:15 a.m.
This Summer Start course emphasizes the development of strong expository writing skills at the level needed to write the kinds of analytical prose expected in college courses. Students will also write personal essays. Paper topics are based on readings and seminar-style discussions of three works that pose critical controversies that engage one in moral reflection:
- Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried (Is the truth about war best portrayed through "fiction" or through "fact"?),
- Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Is this novel a critique of racism or is it profoundly racist?),
- and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (Is this work a manual for seduction and self-interested behavior or a casebook for moral values?).
This highly interactive small-group class provides an ideal framework for exchanging points of view and examples of writing about these texts.