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Foundational Year

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The LAS Foundational Year provides students a broad and structured entry into the academic world and establishes a shared basis of skills and knowledge.

Grafik Foundational Year 2023

The Foundational Year has four parts:

1. Academic Key Skills (LAS Core)

In the modules "Research and Presentation" and "English Academic Writing", students develop and sharpen their academic key skills, learn how to undertake research by working with academic literature and sources, and how to present a topic to a particular audience both in oral and in written form. The starting point for these courses are complex real-world topics such as "Aspects of Communication", "Internationalism", "Sustainable Foord Transformation", or "Humans and Other-than-Humans". In the course "Dealing with Numerical Information", students learn how to use numerical data in both academic and non-academic settings.

2. Perspectives on Knowledge (LAS Core)

As a basis for academic and scientific work across disciplines, first-year students take the first of four modules on Reflections on Knowledge and Science: "Knowledge in Context". Here, students are introduced to three key issues in Liberal Arts and Sciences: interdisciplinarity, methodological choices, and critical thinking. The study of knowledge in various historical, social, political, and practical contexts helps students to develop their individual study paths.

3. Responsibility and Leadership I (LAS Core)

This part of the curriculum helps students develop their capacities to act responsibly in academic, professional and personal contexts. It combines academic approaches from a variety of disciplines with personal reflection.

4. Introductions to Majors

In the Summer Semester, students take introductions to three of the four LAS Majors. The introductions familiarize students with the contents and breadth of these academic fields and enable them to make a well-informed choice of their own Major:

  1. Culture and History
  2. Governance
  3. Life Sciences
  4. Environmental and Sustainability Studies