Cornerstone is designed to support both students who are new to Evergreen and current students wanting to further develop their academic skills. We will take up a shared inquiry into what it means to be ‘good.’ What is ‘good,’ and should we try to be “good enough” or even perfect, as humans and as students? Our approach to that question will balance support and rigor as we take on bite-sized (but filling) philosophical texts from Aristotle, Adam Phillips, Immanuel Kant, and pair those readings with resource texts like Michael Schur’s very funny and helpful book How to Be Perfect and Lewis Newman’s Thinking Critically in College. We’ll talk about these big questions while also strengthening skills in close reading, academic writing, note-taking, conversation, and critical reasoning. You will identify and develop areas of academic interest and need, and hopefully you will end ready to thoughtfully design or redesign a plan that can guide you in all educational endeavors to come.
We will talk about what an education is and what it is for, and what it means to pursue it at an interactive, cooperative, and student-centered college. At Evergreen, we hope you learn to activate, understand, and respond meaningfully to your readings, labs, fieldwork, and more. That means Evergreen asks you to put what you learn to ‘good’ use, rather than to merely absorb and reproduce course content. Also, because we don’t have majors at Evergreen, you have the chance to take any number of external demands and goals and transform them into opportunities to enjoy trying on different ways of approaching learning. Eventually, Evergreen hopes you will want to translate the given goals and aims of education set for you by others (even those set by Evergreen!) into your own terms, but it is hard work and more fun with friends. How can you connect what you are doing at Evergreen with your interests, experiences, big questions, and goals? In a social and active space, we will work together to support you in answering that question.
Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:
4 - Foundational Skills for Academic Success
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Academic Details
The metaphor of a "Cornerstone" comes from traditional building, where it means the first stone laid for a structure, and it marks the geographical location by orienting the building in space. This course will be about helping you orient yourself and lay the foundation to happily and successfully pursue the projects that are important to you.