First-Year Foundations (FYF) Courses
During your first year at Dominican University of California, you will explore the significance of a liberal arts education to your own life and the life of society. You will deepen your understanding of the breadth and depth of human intellectual and creative expression in the arts, history, literature, music, philosophy, science, or anthropology. The courses comprising FYF are globally informed, historically contextualized introductions to fundamental themes within the history of arts, ideas, and human culture formation.
All first-year students take Art and Society in their Fall or Spring semester.
Art History 1000: Art and Society (2 units)
In this course, you will explore the visual arts. While becoming familiar with the concepts and terminology of visual analysis, you will learn about the functions and purposes of art through the ages. Arranged thematically and chronologically, Art and Society covers selected topics and artistic monuments from prehistoric times to the contemporary period, concentrating on the relationship of art to religious, political, historical, and scientific developments.
All first-year students select two further courses, to be chosen from the following six classes, to complete the six-unit FYF requirement. Courses may be taken in either fall or spring semester but must be completed in the first year. If you are majoring in Dance, Nursing, or Pre-OT, be sure to select Social and Cultural Studies 1005 as one of your choices.
English 1000: Classics of World Literature (2 units)
In this class, you will be immersed in Monsters in the Literary Imagination. Everyone loves a monster, and here’s your chance to read, study, and discuss them. In this class, fangs, wings, claws, and fiery breath keep the reading lively as you study classical monsters from around the world, learning what a good scare tells about diverse cultures and writers. This class incorporates study of novels, stories, myths, and films.
History 1000: Eyewitness to History (2 units)
History is the art of selecting, analyzing, and writing about the past. To demonstrate its excitement and value, this course will explore the past by using such primary sources as diaries, personal letters, autobiographies, memoirs, and travel accounts written by men and women of different countries, cultures, religions, and social classes in order to understand different points of view of historical events.
Biology 1200: Science and Society (2 units)
From transsexual frogs to organ transplants, from socio-economic class to animal testing, this course examines how the ideas and institutions of science affect society, using a critical inter-disciplinary perspective. Focusing on current topics in medicine, biology, physics, and ecology, it traces major scientific revolutions that affect our society today.
Music 1008: The World of the Performing Arts (2 units)
The San Francisco Bay Area performing arts scene serves as a textbook for this class. You will take four to six fieldtrips to attend high-caliber, professional music productions in San Francisco and the Bay Area, as well as at least one dance or theater production. To enhance the performances, you will learn about the specific masterworks through lectures, film clips, and reading; learn the terms or jargon necessary to understand the work to be evaluated; listen to recordings of the works; and learn what to expect at performances.
Philosophy 1000: Classics of World Philosophy (2 units)
In this course, you will explore the ideas of one or more of humanity's greatest thinkers--the likes of Plato, Augustine, Confucius, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Foucault, and Nietzsche--and discover how their understanding of reality and the wisely-lived human life are relevant to you.
Social and Cultural Studies 1005: Human Cultures (2 units)
You will study human cultures in this course with a focus on diverse family, institutional, and community structures. You will explore topics such as kinship, marriage, religion, and economics. You will also have an opportunity to reflect on human social experiences within a global and historical context. (This course is required for Dance, Nursing, and OT majors.)
