What does UIS have to offer?

This Saturday is the first Preview Day at UIS, providing a great chance for prospective students to visit campus, get answers to all of their question and to get a super amazing tour, given by me! Lol, I'm still sort of training for this, so I hope it goes well! I look forward to meeting my future peers. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I look at this blog as a fun place for current students as well as prospective students to have a little over view of what UIS is really like. To see and experience it through the eyes of a current student is extremely important to those considering attending this university and I really want to utilise my blog to help influence that decision. I applied and was accepted to the Capital Honors Program my freshman year. I had no idea what that entailed and discussing it with my classmates recently I learned they didn't really know either. The Cap Program is a specific curriculum, mandating all of it's students to be enrolled in 2 years of a foreign language, BioChem and the classes "Who Am I?" "How Do You Know?" "What is Good?" and "What is Power?" If you are not familiar with these classes you're probably wondering what material would possibly be covered in these courses. Well, each section offers a different set of texts for the semester, each with the goal of answering these questions.

There was a freshmen Symposium for our "How Do You Know?" class last year, which was really cool because we got to utilise everything we learned and compete for a $200.00 prize.
My team worked very hard on our presentation, "Media During the Cold War, the Tripod of Disciplines." Professors love when you incorporate metaphors in anything :-) That's "Team Amzing" reheasing for the 3rd hour straight in my room, lol.


Oh yeah, we won!In my studies I have read Plato, Confucius, Sarte (not my favorite), Aristotle and many more. I felt that some of my classes were more worthwhile than others, but the Honors Program is truly what you make it. As an English major I really do love the concept of these classes, they really value the idea of class discussion and debating ideas with fellow students. They influence leadership, self-cultivation, creativity and the ability to challenge authority. There are some concrete benefits to Cap as well, you are assigned a peer mentor to help you adjust to your first year of college and to advise you on whatever you are stuggling with, you get a free laptop and scholarship opportunities as well. Below is my first Cap project for "Who Am I?" We got to do whatever we wanted to show our professors what we're all about, I chose to express mysel through this video.