If you’ve toured Skidmore at all, chances are you’ve heard your tour guide use the 至少说一次“创造性思维很重要”.

You’ve probably also heard about Skidmore’s first-year Scribner Seminars. 如果你 ever been on a tour with me, I know you’ve heard me use Scribner Seminars as an example 创造性思维的重要性.

Scribner Seminars aren’t “typical” first-year seminars where you sit through lectures on college basics and write papers to learn “college writing.“相反，它们很时髦， cool, unique and, dare I say, creative classes inspired by each professor’s passions.

Interdisciplinary by intention, they embody Skidmore’s brand of hands-on, experiential 学习. That means 学习 about maritime history by canoe on Saratoga Lake, analyzing sports to learn statistics and getting your first taste of cultural anthropology 听韩国流行音乐.

My Scribner Seminar entry into college was through Picturing Time with Sarah Sweeney, 艺术副教授. 从购买144只塑料蚂蚁到结交新朋友 更重要的是，这就是为什么我非常喜欢它.

我喜欢斯克里布纳研讨会的五个原因

1. 完全独一无二的话题

First-year students receive a list over the summer of more than 40 Scribner Seminars 选择…. 你会有 夏季顾问提供帮助 you, but I feel it’s really about going with your gut and trying something outside 你的舒适区.

起初，我被那些古怪的课程名称搞得不知所措.

There was Human Dilemmas, Extraordinary Bodies, In the Light of Death, What to Eat?, 和库克船长一起航行等等. 然而，《火博体育》引起了我的注意 它的描述:

Time is the material of artists working in photography, video and animation. 但是, 时间是向前走还是向后走? 它的形状是一个圆圈还是一个箭头? 让时间停止是什么意思? 我们将把时间看作一个社会结构，一个区域 of scientific discovery, a tool for structuring narrative and a medium for recording 我们的生活.

I knew this class would make me think in ways I never have and leave me puzzled by 时间是多么的奇怪. (I didn’t know I’d subject my friends to an entire semester’s worth 火博体育这种我们称之为时间的奇怪现象的独白.) 

2. 作业

In this class, we did time experiments and then created art pieces based on our findings.

我们来回走了一个小时 以笨拙著称的楼梯 by the art building to experience what one hour felt like.

We wore watches that vibrated every five minutes to feel time, whether that was experienced through seeing how fast a class was going or realizing how much time we spent procrastinating 在餐厅和朋友聊天的时候.

We used Go-Pros to explore campus, filming through the stairs of the Tang Teaching Museum or from the top of a tree to create time-圈e movies and pop-art pieces.

I even photographed ants to Photoshop them onto my friend’s face … but more on that 下一个.

3. 我买了144只塑料蚂蚁

你没看错. For my seminar, I ordered 144 plastic ants on Amazon Prime just 这样我就可以拍一张了. 让我解释一下.

We had an assignment in which we had to create a “未来 ritual.“这个作业 entailed us thinking about rituals and customs that don’t exist now but might in the 未来. Our professor encouraged us to think outside of the box and get creative with 我们的想法.

Sitting in the library and thinking about how I wanted to be outside, I created a 未来吃蚂蚁的仪式. 我出去想找一只蚂蚁拍照， only to realize that ants were hard to find in the snow, so I went to the place all 大学生在经济困难的时候会去亚马逊Prime.

很奇怪，我知道. But it led to some of my favorite memories at Skidmore, plus I now own over 100 plastic ants (a few may have crawled off to some different dorms each 偷偷溜进朋友的房间.

4. 4小时

Once a week our class would spend an hour (sometimes more, sometimes less) doing something other than class, often led by our peer mentor, an upperclassman dedicated to supporting 一年级学生. 每个研讨会都有一个.

有时我们在北森林徒步旅行. 其他时候，我们会讨论各种元素 of class registration and degree audits, one step at a time. 我们也有电影之夜， carved pumpkins, made gingerbread houses, learned how to take the bus downtown and 一起出去吃饭.

Each 4小时 experience helped me adjust to college life and learn about both Skidmore and the Saratoga community in a supportive and non-judgmental environment.

5. 见见我现在的室友

Another class assignment was to go meet a stranger and photograph them 10 different times in 10 different shutter speeds, then use the footage in Photoshop to create 故事或拼贴画.

Wanting an excuse to go to a place I love while also doing my homework, I went to 我们的校园游泳池找到我的陌生人. 当我到达时，有一个女孩在游泳 圈. I awkwardly explained my project of meeting a “stranger” and, thankfully, she agreed to help by swimming more 圈 and blowing bubble rings.

两年后，那个陌生人成了我的室友!

标题 into my seminar for the first time, I was skeptical as to what we would be doing and worried that it might just be a lecture-type class with a cool title, but 男孩，我错了. My seminar became a place for me to debrief with my peers about other 课堂和一个安全的地方去尝试新事物. 这是一门有趣的课程，帮助我们 transition from high school to college so smooth because it was set up in a way that 确保我总是感到受欢迎.