King's One helps students pick the right path

King’s offers many exciting programs and courses. But the question for many incoming students is “which field is right for me?” Responding to this, King’s has created Interdisciplinary Studies 1100E - King’s One: Urgent Questions, a high-energy, team-taught course presenting a variety of disciplines to graduating high school students while tackling vital contemporary problems and introducing students to King’s award-winning faculty.

King’s One is a “sampler course” designed to give students a wide range of experience, covering six disciplines within the year: History, Literature, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Political Science, and Economics.  Every month, students study a different discipline, but each subject focuses on one specific global issue. Students learn how a concentration of diverse perspectives leads to an understanding of the world’s problems.  The course also introduces students to the main methodologies of each of the six disciplines. Importantly, such academic breadth gives students an edge in their other courses as well.

“Studying six different disciplines gives students the confidence to choose their degree program while also enlarging their repertoire of interest. At the same time, it exposes them to many more faculty and encourages them to continue to study in a variety of areas, alongside their dedicated degree subject,” says Dr. Claudia Clausius, King’s One Coordinator.

Clausius explains King’s One, as an interdisciplinary course, “will teach students how to think in an integrated manner about urgent global issues such as civic conflict, freedom and tyranny, the difficulties of progress, the accelerated human, state spectacles, capitalism, surveillance, power structures, mass communication, etc.”

“The critical thinking and communication skills, as well as the research experience, derived from King’s One will benefit students across other courses too, both in first and subsequent years at King’s. In a wider context, the course will make students engaged global citizens: mature, thoughtful, and proactive. As a liberal arts university, King's offers students a comprehensive education for both a wide and a deep understanding of the world” says Clausius.

For more information, please visit https://www.kings.uwo.ca/academics/kings-one-urgent-questions/