Baruch Leadership Academy: Arts and Humanities

The Baruch Leadership Academy’s Arts & Humanities Program introduces students to the collegiate experience. The program’s comprehensive material covers from Financial Markets to Social Justice and Philosophical studies, allowing students to explore their passions while also mastering the college admissions process.

Students not only receive a well-rounded academic program, but they also get to experience New York City through travels to intriguing destinations that make summer entertaining.

Topics in the Arts and Humanities Included:

Unwrapping the Happy Meal – McLecture

This anthropology lecture challenges students to think critically about what the McDonald’s Happy Meal says about American culture. By “making the unconscious conscious” and “the familiar odd,” we may evaluate and debate cultural norms and values linked with the population that buys and loves a Happy Meal.

When is $20 no longer $20? An Overview of Behavioral Economics

This course introduces students to the topic of Behavioral Economics, which is located at the intersection of Psychology and Economics and provides a framework for understanding how human behavior influences economic decisions. Students are introduced to the rational choice model of economics before engaging in a simulation in which groups of students are given $20 and must make multiple decisions about what to do with it.

String Theory, Quantum Gravity, and Grand Unified Theories

We examine the historical evolution of some fundamental ideas in the area of physics that help humans comprehend how the universe works in this talk by a Professor of Physics at Baruch. Following a review of nature’s four fundamental forces, we will analyze the evolution of Grand Unified Theories, emphasizing the contributions of philosophers and scientists such as Einstein, Newton, and Galileo. Students study about the development of Quantum Gravity and String Theory as the most important physics attempts to understand our reality. We finish by outlining a few job avenues in which college physics students might excel: medical, finance, the arts, and academia, to mention a few.

The Impact of Settler Colonialism on Indigenous History

This course examines Native American history via an indigenous viewpoint. Students learn to read Native American history and artifacts critically. They learn about the numerous techniques used by European colonialists and the American government to commit genocide against an estimated 130 million Indians throughout westward expansion, including weaponized illness, forced expulsion, food defilement, and more.

Not Those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo of Sixteenth-Century Italy

Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo, four sixteenth-century Italian geniuses, characterized the High Renaissance with their tremendous art, ability, and ingenuity. Life in sixteenth-century Italy will be reimagined, as will the contributions of each artist to the blossoming of the arts and culture.

The Stress Management Psychology

This lecture, taught by a certified clinical psychologist, provides a diversity of viewpoints on the origin, causation, and presentation of stress. It explains how stress affects the brain and endocrine systems and how these effects lead to stress-related diseases. This lecture gives a chance to practice relaxation techniques like as progressive relaxation, which are intended to counteract the effects of toxic stress supplements.

Radiohead, Analysis, and Digital Distribution Models in the Digital Era

In this talk, we follow the history of the band Radiohead, examining its reaction to the opportunities provided by digital distribution techniques, putting them in a changing music market, and offering a model for popular music analysis.

Data, Information, Knowledge

We begin class by asking whether the Millennial generation is better or worse off today than previous generations with respect to knowledge and technology. In this class, students define information, knowledge, and wisdom. Students will learn how technology has changed the way humans think and acquire knowledge. The session will explore the importance of effort and persistence in learning in the framework of our information-rich society.

How to Read a Film

The verb we tend to use when talking about how we interact with a film is “watch,” and often that is all we do. We watch the film–it entertains or it doesn’t–and then we watch something else. To “read” a film though, is to more closely consider why the film entertains or fails to, or why that question may be irrelevant completely to the worth of the film. We read films by taking into consideration some important aspects of how films are made, how most everything we see on the screen–from the lighting, the framing, sound design, etc–are the result of deliberate choices made to enhance particular moods and themes and ideas the film hopes to explore. In this lecture, students are introduced to important filmmaking techniques, and we carefully watch the opening scene of a popular movie and analyze the way the director uses these techniques to make meaning.

Your Best Foot Forward: Writing Stellar Cover Letters and Personal Statements

In this workshop, we demystify the unique and challenging genre of writing about oneself in order to land a job interview or a college acceptance letter. First, students learn how to closely read a job advertisement and/or writing prompt in order to determine how to respond. Then, we carefully examine a strong personal statement and analyze how the writer describes personal qualities, experiences, and talents and tailors them to the desired post. Students then draft statements of their own, using model sentence structures provided by the workshop, summarizing their work experience and interests into a well-crafted, personalized letter.

Constructing Historical Evidence Through Artifact Analysis

This workshop led by a museum educator models a methodology of historical analysis to students. The lecturer demonstrates how historians extract data from everyday objects and make inferences about the people who used them.

Fear and Loathing in the Animal Kingdom: Predator-prey Interactions and Their Impacts

This lecture by an ecology professor demonstrates the importance of predator-prey interactions in the animal kingdom on the ecosystem. Topics covered include species, evolution, symbiotics, and ecology. Students learn how scientists determine the health of an ecosystem by examining the health of the predators and their prey.

Reading and Writing Micro-Fiction

What do we need to tell a good story? A beginning, middle, and end? A certain number of words? Or, something else? In this class, we will discuss what constitutes a compelling story as we read micro-fiction, very short narratives made up of approximately 250 words. We will consider how these micro-fiction authors tell their stories–what they include and what they omit. In the second half of the class, students write and share their own pieces of micro-fiction.

The College Admission Essay

Specialized instructors help students identify unique and meaningful personal stories that they can showcase within their college admission essay. Students are provided with guidance to begin to tell those stories in with their own authentic voices, and are encouraged to discover the pleasure of writing, reflecting, and sharing a piece of themselves with the world.

What is Globalization?

This lecture provides an overview of globalization and the major players who participate in the internationalization of the world’s economy. Students examine how multinational corporations and international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and the United Nations affect globalization. The class is intended to propel students to think about economics on an international scale.

*Course material is subject to change.