First Year Student Registration

Dan Weiss, President

I'd like to welcome you to Lafayette College. We're delighted that you're here. I know that you're about to begin a great adventure as you begin to think about what you want to study here at the college. And begin more immediately to develop your selections for registration. I encourage you to think broadly; go after and study those subjects that interest you. Take chances. Take on all the opportunities that you can while you're here. It will be a great time in your life. You'll get lots of advice and support from us. I wish you all the best. We're delighted you're here, and good luck.

Wendy Hill, Provost

Hi my name is Wendy Hill and I'm Provost and Dean of the Faculty here at Lafayette College. On behalf of the faculty, I welcome you into our vibrant academic community. You are now ready to begin what I know will be an exciting and rewarding academic experience at Lafayette. And you are enormously lucky in that you'll be aided in this navigation by a wonderfully talented and committed faculty. A faculty who aspire that each and every one of you have an enriching academic experience. Please remember however, that although the faculty are here to guide you, you are the one ultimately in control of your academic experience. So don't be afraid to expand your horizons, and seek out new directions. Your time here, and in the future will be richer for it. Again, welcome.

Hannah Stewart-Gambino, Dean of the College

Hello. Welcome to the online registration site for the Class of 2012 at Lafayette College. I'm Hannah Stewart-Gambino, I'm the Dean of the College here at Lafayette. Before you start thinking about the courses that you might want to register for in the Fall semester, let me say a couple of things about the site that we've sent you, and the information we're providing. First, you'll notice that we send this to you in advance of the actual registration process. The reason is, we've provided a lot of information. There is information about departments, the common course of study, about individual courses, and what we're hoping is that you'll spend a few days familiarizing yourself with the kind of information we're offering you in this site.

Second, we recognize that choosing courses for your first semester at college can feel a little daunting. That's why we send you so much information. You'll also notice that we have provided a series of short videos of faculty and administrators from across campus. These videos are designed to offer the general kinds of advice that faculty would offer you if you were sitting in their office with them during the course registration process. Please take time to sample widely across these videos. It's a chance to begin to get to know us, and to understand what we mean by being a member of the Lafayette scholarly community.

Lastly, if you still have questions after reading through all the information, and after sitting back and thinking about it, after watching the videos, I would really encourage you to use the Email and Advisor option that's provided to you in these pages. The other option is to contact directly, Dean Ron Robbins who is the first and second year class dean. Dean Robbins and our staff work very hard over the summer to answer your questions and get back to you as quickly as possible.

So with no further adieu, welcome to Lafayette College. We're looking forward to welcoming you here in August, and particularly having you join us in the vibrant intellectual community that is Lafayette College. Thank you.

Rosie Bukics, Professor of Economics & Business

I'm Rosie Bukics, Professor of Economics and Business at Lafayette College. I've been here twenty-eight years. I've seen a lot first year students come in to Lafayette, and I'm here to tell you that you probably right now are worried about what your major's going to be, and what you're major's going to be in terms of what job are you going to get when you finish? I'm here to reveal that what you major in, and what your job's going to be are actually not connected.

For those of you who are thinking economics and business, I'm going to ask you the question: and that is, do you think you need to major in economics and business because that's what you have to do to get a job? I'm here to tell you it's not true. In fact, the most important thing you should be thinking about right now is what do you like, what are you passionate about, where do you see yourself ultimately in the long run? I have news for you, everyone that graduates from Lafayette College is not a business and economics major and yet, everyone who graduates from Lafayette College, is working. And a large and significant number of our students are working in the business world, but they didn't all major in economics and business. You might say why? Well, the most important thing is that you love what you do everyday. And that's true when you're here in college, that you love what you're studying, you love what you're learning about. Not, I have to learn this because it will get me a job when I graduate.

So I'm here to tell you that recruiters-- I work with them all the time-- and the most important thing I can tell you about prospective jobs is be able to articulate why you majored in what you majored in, and why was that important in developing who you are as a person because it's that overall person that they are interested in. They will teach you what you need when you get to a job.

In fact, an interesting thing happened not that long ago. I was on a bus on the way into New York City to give a talk to the finance alums-- Lafayette College alums who were working in the financial field on Wall Street. And as I was riding the bus, I was looking at the list of alums I was going to meet and something was remarkable. As I went down the list, I began to realize that only about a third of them had actually majored in economics and business. We had majors in history, majors in engineering, philosophy, and guess what? They were working on Wall Street. When firms come to recruit students they want to know: can you write well, can you articulate your position, can you think analytically, and can you think outside the box. Any major we have here at Lafayette College is designed to give you the critical skills that you need to be successful in whatever job you pursue.

So it's important to remember, you're at a critical time in your life. You may think there is one thing you want to do, but as you explore your options here at Lafayette College, you might be surprised at what you find out about yourself. So my words of wisdom to you are, follow your passion. Love what you're doing everyday and love your life.

Sharon Jones, Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering

As you explore the many opportunities that await you, I encourage you to consider how technology may affect your life now and in the future. I can not imagine a profession that does not include technological applications from artists to lawyers, from musicians to financial analysts, from teachers to doctors. Even more so, the technology all around us affects us as people. As individuals and as a collective society.

You chose a liberal arts college because you recognize the value of such an education for your personal development over the next four years. By choosing Lafayette in particular, you not only benefit from an excellent liberal arts education, but you have the opportunity to benefit from an excellent engineering school even if you do not plan to become an engineer.

At Lafayette, teams of engineering and non-engineering students work together in project courses offered by the engineering division. These students bring their particular expertise to develop sustainable solutions to problems faced by rural villages in Honduras. These students can then participate in one of our two trips per year to Honduras to work side-by-side with villagers to make sure the solutions work in a particular socioeconomic, political and cultural context. This is just one example of the multi-disciplinary projects available to you over your four years.

Lafayette also has several interdisciplinary minors that include engineering courses open to most students. Two examples are biotechnology and environmental science. Our engineering faculty members regularly teach several of the first-year seminars you get to select this summer. They also teach several of the sophomore level VaST seminars -- VaST stands for values and science and technology. Both of these seminars give you an in depth opportunity to actively discuss and critically analyze the impact technology can have on society.

For a select set of students, who want a liberal arts degree that includes significant exposure to engineering and technology, you may want to consider the bachelor of arts degree in engineering. This degree is particularly appealing to those interested in the health, legal or business professions. It can also be appealing to those interested in studying the intellectual context inherent to the engineering discipline.

Be sure to check the suggested courses if you are interested in this major. And, I encourage you to consider taking our ES101 course that provides an introduction to the various engineering disciplines. Our engineering faculty members look forward to seeing you as you continue to sample engineering courses in our division over the next four years.

Suzanne Westfall, Professor of English

I'm Suzanne Westfall, head of the English and theater department here at Lafayette. Congratulations for choosing a liberal arts education. It's important right now to remember what the meaning of liberal arts is. A lot of people think it's liberal as in left-wing loonies. Some people think it's derived from the word for book in Latin, Libra, from which we get library. But etymologically, the word liberal arts descends from the Roman-Latin word for "free"; the arts of a free person.

The Romans educated their slaves in practical matters; enough mathematics to do business and accounting, and enough engineering to do building. But they reserved the liberal arts for the free-born roman citizens because they considered them dangerous. These are the arts that allow us to rationally think, to persuade, to argue; the arts of literature, philosophy, history, rhetoric, natural science, and theology for example. These are the arts that bring us together as thinkers, that teach us to think outside the box.

The reason why the Romans thought these arts were dangerous is because we use them to persuade and we use them to change people's minds and we use them creatively to get other people to imagine what we imagine. So every time you come to Lafayette College, you will be not a business major or a government and law major, but you will be a bachelor of science student or a bachelor of art student. What this means is you'll take a common course of study, which means you'll be introduced to the humanities, to the arts, to the social sciences, to the natural sciences so that you too can be a dangerous person.

You'll be asked to read analytically, to learn to speak and to write persuasively, to collaborate with other students, to think in the paradigms of all kinds of different majors in order to become a dangerous, thinking person.

I can give you one example. A student I had many years ago, studied English and history here at Lafayette. She ended up being the head of marketing at HBO and running their Web series. They told her when she took the job that she didn't have to know much about marketing or business, but they couldn't teach her creativity or communication skills. So whatever liberal art you study here, it may get you the career you really, really want and perhaps not the career you had in mind from the beginning.

Susan Niles, Professor of Anthropology & Sociology

You guys are about to start on an amazing journey. Not just physically getting in the car or hopping on a plane and coming to Lafayette, but you're going to be seeing places, meeting new people, doing new things you haven't done before. For some of you it's going to be as little as sharing a room for the first time with somebody in a relatively small dorm space, but you will learn to actually enjoy the experience. For others of you it will be coming to a campus where you'll get to take classes in subjects you've never encountered in high school. You'll go to performances in the Williams Center and see dances and music and all sorts of things that you've not run into before. And I hope you'll take full advantage of it. Lafayette has a lot to show you, and there are a lot of great experience that you'll be able to have. In a lot of ways going to college is a journey because you are leaving the thing that is familiar and coming to something that is new to you.

I hope some of you at least will take advantage of the opportunity to study off campus during your time at Lafayette. I'm not just necessarily encouraging you to get away, but really to go out and study in another country, learn to interact with people in a different culture, perhaps speaking a language that is not your native language or perhaps not even a second language. At Lafayette, you have a number of ways where you can engage in off-campus activities. Probably the most common is to study abroad for a semester. And you can choose a number of different kinds of programs, some sponsored by the college, others sponsored by other colleges with whom we affiliate. So you'll have the opportunity to go to all sorts of different places that you might choose where you maybe have the language background that you need to start the program or maybe you'll learn a new language and choose a program in a different place. For example, this semester I have students studying in Argentina, London, Spain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Nepal -- all sorts of places. Really there is no limit to where you can go.

But let's imagine that you say study abroad sounds great, but a whole semester for whatever reason is not really what you want to do. No problem, other options are available. Lafayette sponsors a number of interim classes abroad. This is where you go with one, sometimes two, Lafayette faculty members for three and a half weeks. Most of these are held during our January time away from campus, and a few of them are held in May after classes, but most of them are in January. And here, you go and you get a college course credit for a study and travel experience led by Lafayette faculty. We've got them in a number of places, and it changes a little bit every year. I've led them in New Zealand in the past which is pretty fabulous. We've got them now going at least to Guatemala, London, Scotland, I think there is another one in Australia this year; they're all over the place. But this is a possibility if you want to get a course credit and get a relatively short time abroad led by Lafayette faculty.

Another option you might consider is doing an LVAIC course. That is, a course sponsored by Lafayette and local colleges often, but not always led by a Lafayette faculty member. Again, courses transfer seamlessly. These are held for six week each summer, and here you get to study a language and culture in a particular place, wherever they're going that year. I think we've traditionally got programs in Italy and in Mexico and some others that I'm not thinking of right now. But that's a good chance to get several course credits, again led by Lafayette and not necessarily during the year when you might otherwise be taking classes.

So there are a lot of ways that you might be able to have a study abroad experience or an off-campus study experience while you're at Lafayette that still allow you to take full advantage of being on campus and participating in its activities, fulfilling the requirements of your majors, and just having the wonderful journey that I know you'll have while you're at Lafayette.

COMING SOON

Alan Childs, Professor of Psychology

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George Panichas, Professor of Philosophy

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Curlee Holton, Professor of Art

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Dru Germanoski, Professor of Geology

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Scott Hummel, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering

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