Important Due Dates:

•October 18th: Three Event Reviews and “life so far…” Essay

•December 13th: Three Event Reviews and First Semester Essay

The cultural and campus events requirement for this course is designed to introduce you to the many resources and events at the College of Charleston.  For this purpose, “cultural” is very loosely defined.  It can mean what it traditionally means – a lecture, a film, a gallery opening, a concert.  Since this class focuses on a topic in the sciences, you could go to a lecture sponsored by one of the College of Charleston’s science departments or at the Medical University of South Carolina.  It can also mean a club meeting or activity.  For example, you can count a study skills seminar, or a meeting of the George St. Observer to recruit feature editors, or an SGA Senate meeting.  You can even count a college sporting event, but you can’t count Greek life activities. And, even though Charleston has many interesting cultural possibilities, you can’t count anything that isn’t sponsored by the College. To find events that might work for you, go to the College of Charleston events calendar or check the links below. If you are in doubt about whether the event is appropriate for this project, ask me.

Useful Links: College of Charleston Events Calendar, The Center for Student Learning, Student Clubs and Organizations, Campus Sports and Recreation, Campus Arts and Culture,

You can’t repeat an event once you have done it (or, rather, you can continue to participate in the club, go to the study-skills seminars or follow a team, but you can’t count it more than once and you can only do one write-up on the event).  The point of the cultural events project is to introduce you to many of the possibilities of participation at the College in hopes that you will both have new experiences and discover experiences that you want to continue to participate in.

You will be required to accumulate six cultural events.  You will turn in your cultural events folder once at midterm (see above for due date). You may use any kind of folder that you’d like. By midterm, you should have done at least 3 cultural events.  You will also submit a 2-3 page essay in which you talk about ‘life so far…’ at the College of Charleston.  For this essay, you will summarize what is working well for you in your classes, residence hall, activities, etc., what is not working well for you, and what you plan to do for the rest of the semester to maximize positive experiences and minimize negative ones. At the end of the semester, you will re-submit your cultural events folder with both the material you submitted at midterm and 3 more events, as well as a summary 2-3 page essay describing what you have experienced and what you have learned (in class and out) in your first semester at College of Charleston.

Your write-ups of these events may be brief – one or two typed, single or 1.5 spaced (not double spaced) pages, but they should be thorough enough to indicate clearly that you attended the event and stayed until the end.  It is always a good idea to save the programs or hand-outs, if there are any, and attach them to your write-up.  Convincing me that you participated in the event and evaluated the event is at the heart of a good write-up. The requirements of a campus or cultural event write-up should be similar to a brief review and should include:

•A description of what you saw, did, heard, etc.

•What did you think of it?

•Would you go or participate again?