<p>Is anyone else considering the First-Year Residential Seminar? Initially, I thought the idea sounded really cool--discussions from class carried over to the dorm, a more intellectual feel, etc.--but some of the negative comments on the back of the form have kind of scared me.</p>
<p>Does anyone else have more information about the FRS?</p>
<p>Negative comments? Sometimes proud accomplishments and plastic laud are not the most sincere way to praise. I think those comments point out to prefrosh what type of a learning experiece FRS can be. Look at some of the works we will read: Marx, the Bible, the Kuran, Freud, controversial literature. What I hope to find in the FRS is argument. Yes, I expect to be frustrated sometimes--just as I am now when I debate touchy issues with my friends. Yet, from that frustration, the academic experience and the introspective analysis, will evoke some extraodinarily educational and intellectual moments. That, I think, what those comments are trying to convey. Discussions raised will be difficult to conquer, but nothing of value is easily obtained. FRS will offer challenges, and certainly opposing arguments that you must refute, others, justify, and through all of this, learn in a completely different dimension, one with its obstacles, but whose rewards no one can describe accurately enough with words. I have argued with both those who have the ability to defend themselves properly and those who are unable to. I have experienced good debates, and I want to experience more. (As a prospective philosophy/political economy/math major, this course is perfect for me.) </p>
<p>Seriously, though, if you want any sort of intellectual, argumentative experience you can only expect to face those complaints that you read on the back of the form, but these "complaints" may not detract from your experience at all. The key is to let them only give color to your day.</p>