Are you looking for an intriguing and fun elective to fill up your schedule or fulfill a requirement? Though it sometimes takes a bit of searching to find, Ulster offers a number of unique and innovative courses to bring some excitement into your semester. Here’s just a few you can sign up for this spring!
History of Rock Music – MUS 175
Personally, I’ve seen enough students with band-related apparel to safely say that many of you love rock music. Why not learn more about it in this informative class that covers every aspect of the genre? You get to learn about the history of rock music from its pre-50s roots to today, including its social causes and effects, style trends, and the backgrounds of many performers and songwriters who worked within it. Every other aspect of the business is covered too, as the course description says other topics are “language geared towards the non-musician musical features of rock: instrumentation, melodic/harmonic/rhythmic details, performance styles, lyrics, visual aspects (personal appearances, album covers, etc.), and production/recording techniques.” Of course, you get to listen to a great deal of music, both in and out of the classroom. What could beat receiving college credit for listening to music you already love? Professor Gregory Dinger, who teaches the class, says “The students are assigned a lot of listening outside of class, and we do some playful things in class like “create” appropriate song titles or group names. Some of the written assignments include “Your Favorite and a Least Favorite Song,” reactions to a reading on the “Negative Reactions to early Rock & Roll,” and interviewing someone (of the right age) as to who they preferred in the 1960s: The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.”
If you like writing, this is the course for you. Although it’s a 200-level Communications course, this class can be taken by anyone who has taken ENG 102. Students get to learn about many aspects of the journalism industry, including the development and research, writing, and editing processes used to create feature stories for newspapers and magazines. Best of all, students in the class staff the campus newspaper and contribute articles for credit. Anyone interested in writing or journalism can benefit from this experience and exposure! Professor Robert Pucci, who teaches this class, offers, “The feature journalism class gives the student an opportunity to experience the working environment of a freelance article writer. Students research markets, target publications, write query letters and complete three magazine articles geared to their interests. In the past feature articles written for the class have appeared in local publications.”
Solar System Astronomy – AST 102
Who doesn’t love looking at the stars? The astronomy course here at Ulster offers not only the opportunity to attend a night sky observation (with a telescope and professional input!), but also the chance to learn more about the fascinating world outside our planet of moons, asteroids, meteors, and comets. Professor Steven Schimmrich, who teaches the class, says, “Students learn to use a freeware program called Stellarium which allows you to view the night sky from any location on Earth at any date or time which allows them to predict when and where to observe planets and other celestial objects. Students are introduced to the latest data being returned from NASA missions to various planets, moons, asteroids, and comets in our solar system.” The history of the solar system up through the current search for extraterrestrial life and new planets is also covered. This course is designed for all majors, and actually fulfills a Natural Science elective you might need for graduation.
Register Today!
If you can fit one in, it’s always good to have a class to take purely for the joy of learning! Read more about the courses and find out what requirements they fulfill by clicking on the names above. Be sure to register for these and your other classes before they fill up!
Students in the fashion, entrepreneurship, and music departments successfully planned and produced their very own fashion show this past week! Members of the Introduction to Fashion and Introduction to Entrepreneurship classes collaborated to create outfits and plan Fashion & Entrepreneurship: Stories and Role Models, a fashion show and informative discussion held on Wednesday, November 16, at the Stone Ridge campus. The event highlighted the designs, merchandise, and entrepreneurial stories of seven fashion companies from the local community. The designers and companies who worked with the students included Leong Ong, Pool 28, LLC; Cal Patch, Hodge Podge Farm; Karina Cousineau, Karina Dresses; Margrit Wenzel, LGND Supply Co; Beth Petramale, Next Boutique; Ryan Roche, Ryan Roche Fashion; and Kelly Lyndgaard, Unshattered. A following panel discussion with the business owners offered wisdom and advice for the up-and-coming designers and entrepreneurs, as well as the public.
To create the show, the Fashion and Entrepreneurship students were put into teams and received valuable experience while they studied the work of the fashion companies, met with the business owners, held interviews about their designs and companies, and planned the fashion show. The students compiled what they learned about each company into a story that they shared at the show. Designs were showcased using students as models. A group of students studying Music Entrepreneurship designed the music for the event, and students planned and implemented the marketing for the fashion show.
immersing themselves in the real world, they learn by doing and spending time with experts. Students actually practice skills and the characteristics of an entrepreneurial mindset through projects like this. This is truly the SUNY Ulster way.”
She first discovered the program through posters around campus, as well as from the Honors and STEM departments on campus. After applying and getting accepted, Eva got to spend late May through early July living at Purchase, working on her research project with fellow program members, who were grouped into teams by major. Under the direction of their faculty sponsor, Dr. Mark Jonas, they developed their project, titled “The Effect of Carbon Dioxide on Climate Change”, which was designed to discover the effects of excess carbon dioxide on the genetic expression in fruit flies and specific plant types. While the main portion of the experiment was based in the biology field, Eva and a fellow computer science major in the group were given the task of creating a remote-controlled robotic arm for accomplishing specific tasks, like planting seeds. The idea behind this, and robotics in science experiments in general, is to reduce the effects of human interaction and lessen the possibility of error, an obvious goal for all research projects.
