To any incoming student, enrolling in a first-year writing seminar is a quintessential Cornell experience. An FWS prepares incoming students for collegiate-level writing while delving into niche subjects in a small classroom environment. With over 100 available courses in 30+ departments, incoming students have a wide variety of topics to choose from — including birds, fashion, history, robots, feminism and more.
Students Fly High in “Ways of Looking at a Bird”
In one course, NTRES 1200: “FWS: Ways of Looking at a Bird,” taught by Trifosa Simamora, a Ph.D. candidate in natural resources and environment, students look at birds through artistic, cultural and conservation-focused lenses.
“It’s a very gentle introduction for people who don’t know birds, or people who already love birding, to be able to think about what [we can do] more than just observing the birds, [how] can we actually help with the conservation,” Simamora said.
Oftentimes Simamora takes class outdoors to write in nature, and she encourages students to incorporate birding into their everyday lives.
“I say to them, you can even start from a bird that you can see in everyday life, around Cornell,” Simamora said. “The sense [that] these birds are sharing the same space as us is good for [the students], and even for me, to be a reminder that we share the same ecosystem.”
The readings for Simamora’s class center around bird conservation. Students discuss readings with their classmates and form their own stances on the topics covered.
“This is a good chance for them to have exposure to these issues that they can carry forward into their future,” she said.
Discovering History Through Fashion
While FWS classes have the goal of providing students with skills for the future, some achieve this goal by looking at the past. In ASRC 1835: “FWS: Fashioning the Caribbean: Dress, Textile and History,” taught by Isabelle Duval, a Ph.D. candidate in Africana studies, students learn about Caribbean history through clothing.
One time period the class learns about through fashion is the colonial era, during which European powers took over the Caribbean.
“We focused on slave dresswear and seamstresses and how they negotiate power,” Duval said. “[Students were] thinking about ways that seamstresses can resist certain colonial domination through their labor practice, but also, with dress, how enslaved people are also resisting that extremely dehumanizing practice by asserting their own personhood through their dress.”
As an FWS, Fashioning the Caribbean emphasizes developing writing skills, but Duval also hopes students develop a “critical eye,” and apply it to their understanding of the modern world.
“I hope they leave this class understanding some part of history and then use that to critically think about the Caribbean now,” Duval said.
Downloading Intelligence
Moving from fashion to fiction, COML 1106: “FWS: Robots,” has students think critically about technology while exploring science fiction texts. Song Han, a Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature, teaches a section of the course.
One type of robot discussed in this course is artificial intelligence.
“We’re always having this debate on whether AI has intelligence or not,” Han said. “Several writers and critical theorists have already thought about this question, so we should focus on their contributions.”
Many of the students study engineering or information science and can apply these discussions to how they approach their academic fields, Han said.
Choosing the Right FWS
Han, Simamora and Duval gave the same advice for students choosing an FWS: follow your interests.
Zoe Lamb ’29, who took GOVT 1101 “Power and Politics: Is Feminism for Everybody?” and PHIL 1112: “Philosophical Conversations: Dreaming, Hallucinations, and Imagination,” corroborated this advice.
“Always go for something that’s interesting, not something that you think might be easy,” Lamb said.
As a student majoring in government, Lamb said that Power and Politics directly aligned with her interests. She said the class “completely altered [her] perspective of feminist culture because [she] had never engaged with feminist texts beforehand.”
In addition to gaining knowledge, Lamb found that taking an FWS helped her get started on the right foot at Cornell.
“I consider myself a strong writer, but I got to see what was standard Cornell writing,” she said. “What may have been above par at my [high] school may be below par here. So it was good for setting everyone on an equal playing field.”
Caroline McHugh is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She is a staff writer for the news department and can be reached at cjm444@cornell.edu.
