Sophomore Reboot
Registration for the 2011 Sophomore Reboot has closed. Students who signed up on the waitlist should have received notification already of their workshop assignment if they are in, and notification that they did not get a spot if they requested a workshop that was already filled.
Sunday, September 11, 2011, from 11:30 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Lunch included
Get a jump on your sophomore year, reconnect with your classmates, and take stock of where you are and where you want to go next.
This year's Sophomore Reboot will include the following:
- Small group lunchtime discussion with faculty about picking a major and adviser
- An interactive workshop that you choose from the list below
- Good food and useful swag
Workshops
Each student will participate in one 90-minute workshop. We encourage you to extend yourself a little bit with your workshop choice—think about trying something that isn't an area you think of as a particular strength or one you naturally address with a lot of your course choices.
Please rank at least your top three choices by number (1 is first choice), and we will do our best to accommodate you with the space available. You must rank at least three workshops you're willing to attend, but you are welcome to rank more than three if they interest you. If you are not interested in attending a particular workshop, leave it blank.
Biomathematical Scienes Concentration
Biomathematical Sciences Concentration
Would you love to spend your life trying to understand life? Are you curious about how diseases spread, about how spirals are formed in nature and what proteins, snails and pineapples have in common? Do you love puzzles and math? The Concentration in Biomathematical Sciences might just be for you. I this workshop, we will travel through shape space using molecules, snails, plants and disease to discover patterns that math reveals. Bring your imagination and sense of play as we look at and photograph spirals in the Plant House. We'll then analyze the photos with a geometric model implemented by advanced students using Mathematica. We will also present an overview of the Concentration in the Biomathematical Sciences and explain the application process.
CCC
Center for Community Collaboration
How can Smith students get involved with local communities? How do community collaborations contribute to a Smith education? What resources area available at Smith to support community work? How can we collaborate responsible with local communities? Smith partners with communities and community organizations around the Pioneer Valley, and beyond. This session will explore these partnerships, how students can get involved with them, and how they can work for both student and community collaborators.
CDO
Demystifying the search for "The Perfect Career": Using your sophomore year to explore and build momentum for what comes next
Whether you have a specific profession already in mind, or have no idea how to begin exploring the possibilities, taking a few simple steps during the coming year can give you a head start on planning for a wide variety of career opportunities. In this workshop you'll build a personalized plan for exploring and taking advantage of the many career resources available at Smith.
CEEDS
Think Globally, Learn Locally: The Environment at Smith
What is co-gen? What does LEED Gold mean? Where does Smith's food come from? Where is the community garden? What is the SCAMP? Why is the Mill River called the Mill River? Through a tour of campus, this workshop will show off Smith through the lens of sustainability and the environment. Students will also be introduced to the opportunities and resources provided by Smith's new Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability, along with the multiple curricular pathways (majors, minors, concentrations) that they could choose to study the environment.
Center for Work & Life
Reboot Your Communication Skills to Solve Conflicts at Smith and Beyond
This workshop will teach you some new language to help you identify the range of feelings that you might be having when something pisses you off. It will also introduce a strategy for reframing conflicts with friends and peers with whom you have to live or work in group situations. The workshop will include some fun games.
Global Studies Center
Global Engagement Here and Abroad
How will your education at Smith prepare you for a life of global engagement? In this workshop we will examine how global issues affect everyday life decisions, from deciding what produce to buy in the grocery store (i.e., where does your food come from), to choosing a course to take, to embarking on a professional career. Whether your interest is how to engage in global issues locally (at Smith, in the Northampton community, in your home town), or internationally (through study abroad, internships, or a project during the summer or January interterm), this workshop will help clarify your own interests while also presenting a framework for integrating global learning and engagement into your educational choices.
Museums Concentration
The Museums Concentration: Analyzing an Exhibition
How is information in a museum exhibition communicated? Does the layout of the space impact your experience? How are exhibition decisions made? Join us at the Smith College Museum of Art to think more about these questions with museum staff. After this gallery workshop, you will be ready to enter any museum and think more critically about what you see and experience. The session will also include an overview of the Museums Concentration and a chance to ask questions about the program's application process.
Poetry & Archives Concentration
What's in a concentration? A hands-on exploration of the Archives and Poetry concentrations
Both archives and poetry can seem intimidating, yet both open doors to the hidden treasures of Smith that exist beyond the classroom. We'll meet in the Sophia Smith collection and get our hands on "the stuff"—photos, Smith students' scrapbooks and letters home from college, and Sylvia Plath's drafts. We'll puzzle out how to read the stories behind what's pasted in a scrapbook—how do students from the 1890s construct themselves as "college women"? What rituals and traditions did they create? What did they rebel against? How can looking at Plath's drafts tell us more about how her poems revised the experiences she lived through? If you'd like to write more poetry but haven't had the time, we'll experiment with "flash poems" how to get started writing quickly and often. Students who sign up for this workshop can participate in both archives and poetry exploration, or choose to specialize in one or the other.
Public Speaking
Speak Up: The Art of Effective Speaking
From asking and answering questions in class to delivering a formal presentation, public speaking is an important part of your academic career and central to many professions. In this workshop, we'll discuss the qualities of effective speech craft and delivery as well as how to analyze audiences, manage stage fright, and work with visual aids. Participants will also view and discuss some model speeches and engage in several public speaking exercises.
Quantitative Literacy
Got Q? (Alternative title: Qualms, quandaries, and quizzes.)
Quantitative literacy is an area of growing importance as our society becomes increasingly data and quantity driven. An application for grant funds, whether it's for a poetry center or an entrepreneurial venture, should be accompanied by a quantitative description of how the funds will be spent. Articles in newspapers and online (for example, the New York Times and the Washington Post) include quantitative information and, as consumers of the news, we need to understand that quantitative information in order to fully appreciate and digest the content of the articles. Students often choose Smith because of the open curriculum and the possibility of avoiding math, only to realize that they do need quantitative skills. Many of these students have had their math-egos damaged in school and often they feel anxious, hopeless or powerless when faced with quantitative problems. During our session, led by staff from the Spinelli Center, students will be given the opportunity to discuss their math attitudes and study skills, their quantitative skills, and the benefits of developing quantitative skills. After discussion, we will focus on a brief review of linear equations and simultaneous equation solving in the context of decoding word problems.
Writing
Writing: Beyond the Basics
In your first year, you learned and practiced the basics of academic writing. What skills should you be honing now in your sophomore year to prepare yourself for junior and senior work in the major and graduate school or the working world thereafter? What strengths can you capitalize on and what weaknesses must you attend to in achieving your new goal? What can help and hinder you in achieving your goal? In this workshop, led by a writing counselor at the Jacobson Center, you will reflect on the writing you did in your first year and develop and plan for the sophomore year. In preparation for the workshop, select the best piece of writing from your first year, reread it, and bring it to the workshop.
Faculty Recommendation
Sophomore Reboot will kick off with an informal discussion, over lunch, about choosing a major and a major adviser or any other advising-related topics you'd like to bring up. These lunches will take place in small groups of 10 to 20 students with at least two faculty members per group.
We'd like to hear your suggestions either about specific faculty you'd like to talk with and hear from, or about specific departments/programs/concentrations you'd like to be represented. Once the program is finalized, you will have the chance to sign up for a particular discussion group. We can't promise that we can get the exact faculty you ask for, but this information will help us create a set of groups that match your interests as much as possible.
You certainly do not need to have a major in mind for these discussions, and in fact even if you do have a possible major in mind, you might want the chance to talk with faculty outside that department or program. So please think not only about your field(s) of interest but also about which faculty seem easy to talk to and like they might give you helpful advice and perspective, regardless of field.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I participate in part of the program but not all of it?
No—by signing up you are agreeing to participate in the full program. If you have a conflict that Sunday, please leave the spot for someone else. Based on student feedback from the last two years, we have shortened the program so you can participate fully and still have time for other activities that day.
If I get into the program, what do I need to do to prepare?
Participants will receive updates over the summer via their Smith e-mail accounts to make sure the details of the program are clear. But your main responsibility is simply to show up that Sunday ready to think about the year ahead and to challenge yourself a little bit.
I have more questions about the program; where can I ask them?
E-mail Professor Kate Queeney, faculty director of advising, at kqueeney@smith.edu.
