Foundations Program
The Foundations program will ensure that you start off on firm footing in your educational experience at the university.
During the first year on campus, all incoming students in the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters choose one course to take from the nearly 25 seminars offered every year.
Because Foundations seminars count toward general education requirements (DDC) and not traditional academic concentrations, we encourage you to look for a course that catches your interest, not one that is tied to your major.
Foundations is a required program and is not an elective. If you don't register for a foundations course in your first year here, your student account will be put on hold until you register for a course in this program.
Course Options
Explore courses currently being offered. Select a course title to read the description, meet the faculty member teaching the course, and learn other key facts.
Summer 2022: One Lower-level Course and One Upper-level Course
Fall 2022: Lower-level Courses
- Democratizing Democracy: Expanding, Suppressing, Idealizing, and Ignoring the R…
- Because Internet: The Language of Digital Media (FNDS 1203)
- Fearing the Unknown: Horror Fantasy in Hispanic Fiction (FNDS 1204)
- Art, Power, and Persuasion (FNDS 1302)
- Art/France — Art/Japan (FNDS 1303)
- American Horror Stories (FNDS 1304)
- Gothic Monsters Next Door (FNDS 1305)
- Crossing Boundaries: ‘Passing’ and Social Identity in American History (FNDS 13…
- You Call Them Nobel Prize Laureates? A Worldwide Perspective (FNDS 1307)
- Let’s Talk about Talk! (FNDS 1309)
- Physics for 21st Century Citizens (FNDS 1501)
- Ok, Boomer: Gen Z Becomes Civically Engaged (FNDS 1601)
- Biology is not Destiny: Exploring the Role Culture has on Human Biology (FNDS 1…
- Infinity Plus One (FNDS 1702)
Fall 2022: Lower-level Courses - Practice-Based Learning focused
Fall 2022: Upper-level Courses
Foundations Course Library
Check out our course library. A list of all approved Foundations courses -- some being offered during the current semester; some in the future!
Helpful links for first-year on our campus students
For More Information
START: Student Advising & Resource Team
2149 University Center (UC)
313-593-5576
umd-start@umich.edu