During their first year, every student at SarahLawrence takes a yearlong seminar-style course taught by their don (SLC speak for faculty adviser). These seminars help students ease into the SLC style of doing things: writing-heavy classes, capped at 15 students, at round tables where discussion flows freely.
This course is the first time students will take on conference work, an opportunity to connect their broader interests to the subject matter of the class. This might look like a research paper, a film, a script, a sculpture, even a rock opera—a true chance for creativity and academic rigor to meet in the field.
Approximately 35 First-Year Studies courses are offered across more than 20 academic disciplines, from “The Disreputable Sixteenth Century” to “The Brain According to Oliver Sacks.” Professor Lizzie Johnston’s class, “The Senses: Art and Science,” investigates human senses through an interdisciplinary lens. Here, students from “The Senses” share their conference projects.
Psychology Professor
"I love seeing how students develop conference ideas out of the shared class experience and their own interests."
Hometown Upper Saddle River, NJ
Project Psychedelics as Therapy: An Exploration of the Empathogenic and Sensory Effects of LSD and MDMA
Hometown Austin, TX
Project I'm So Tired, Please Love This: The Psychology of Love and Rejection
Hometown Chicago, IL
Project Many Vulcan Minds to Comprehend a Human One: A Study of Vulcans, Emotion, and Humans
Hometown Tokyo, Japan
Project Perception of Time: Interoception, Emotion, and the Arts