TCU Undergraduate Catalog: A Glimpse into Diverse Learning Opportunities
TCU's undergraduate catalog offers a wide array of courses designed to provide students with a balanced curriculum, emphasizing liberal arts studies alongside practical skills, preparing them for various fields such as law, medicine, business, teaching, or related areas. The university integrates different disciplines, such as Communication Sciences and Disorders and Social Work, and focuses on connecting classroom experiences with real-world applications.
Exploring the Curriculum
The undergraduate catalog showcases a commitment to intellectual, ethical, and personal growth, fostering a connection to both local and global communities. Here's a glimpse into some of the diverse courses offered:
Finance and Investment
For those interested in finance, a comprehensive course provides beginning knowledge of the Stock Market, Bond Market, Options, Annuities, and Investment Real Estate. This class is designed to provide beginning knowledge of the Stock Market, Bond Market, Options, Annuities, and Investment Real Estate. Furthermore, understanding personal finance is encouraged through courses that explore budgeting, debt management, and financial fraud awareness. These courses review the importance of a budgeting, how a budget impacts your financial success, necessary items to budget, and finally, how to apply those items in monthly Budget Worksheet (Excel), and a short review of budgeting apps. This course identifies the stress associated with debt and provides an overview of the two commonly used debt payoff methods (Debt Snowball and Debt Avalanche) to help you getdebt free.
Health and Wellness
The catalog includes courses focused on health and wellness, such as those exploring brain health and dementia. These courses delve into the 7 Pillars of Brain Health and how they relate to the 14 modifiable risk factors for dementia, discussing how nutrition, movement, sleep, social engagement, cognitive engagement, general health, mindfulness and outlook play significant roles in shaping cognitive fitness and healthspan.
For those interested in anatomy and physiology, a 4-week course covers basic abdominal anatomy and physiology aimed toward the non-medical population, reviewing the anatomy of the digestive tract, liver, gallbladder, appendix, pancreas, and spleen, as well as discussing common abdominal diseases.
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History and Culture
History enthusiasts can explore various topics, from the American Revolution to the Barbary pirates. The course on General Nathanael Greene delves into his role in the Southern Department during the Revolution, while the Barbary pirates course explores their operations in the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean from the 16th through the 19th centuries. "To the shores of Tripoli" goes the Marine Hymn. The Barbary pirates (also called Barbary corsairs) were pirates who operated from the 16th through the 19th centuries along the Barbary Coast of North Africa, preying on ships in the Mediterranean Sea and into the Atlantic Ocean. Many were Muslim seafarers from North Africa, but their ranks also included renegades from Europe who converted to Islam and joined them. They raided merchant ships, seized cargo, and captured crews and passengers. Captives were sold as slaves in North African markets or held for ransom. The pirates often operated under the protection (or at least tolerance) of the North African Ottoman regencies, and their leaders were sometimes state officials.
Arts and Entertainment
The catalog also caters to those interested in arts and entertainment. Film buffs can explore the evolution of science fiction movies, tracing their roots back to the 1950s and the impact of the Cold War and nuclear threats. Science Fiction movie making came of age in the 1950s partly fueled by the Cold war and nuclear threats as well as a new fascination with UFOs. The films were mostly black-and-white, the special effects crude compared to today's CGI, and the stories ranged from the ridiculous to truly thought provoking. These are some of the movies we grew up with and were common drive-in theater fodder. Come down memory row … A course on "A Star is Born" examines the different film versions and ranks their quality, focusing on the 1954 film directed by George Cukor. There have been four film versions of A Star is Born, starting with the non-musical 1937 drama, followed every 20 years or so by a musical version. How do they rank? In my opinion, there is no question that the 1954 film directed by George Cukor, with near-perfect performances by Judy Garland and James Mason, is by far the best. You may disagree, but wait until after we examine all the fascinating details of this film's stars and stories to make that decision.
For music lovers, there's a class dedicated to rediscovering forgotten songs from the past. From deep in Rick's vault of Golden Oldies, this class is about songs you may not remember by some groups you may not have heard of. The songs didn't chart the first time around or hovered at the bottom of the Top 40. We'll give them a 2nd chance.
For those interested in theater, a course focusing on Uta Hagen's acting exercises grounds performances in truth by exploring Hagen's Nine Questions and selected exercises from Respect for Acting to build authentic, moment-to-moment work. Ground your performance in truth with this focused exploration of Uta Hagen’s acting exercises. Stage West Artistic Director, Dana Schultes, will lead participants through Hagen’s Nine Questions and selected exercises from Respect for Acting to build authentic, moment-to-moment work. Students will practice crafting specific circumstances, objectives, and inner life, then apply those discoveries to short monologues and scene work.
Science and Technology
The catalog also offers courses in science and technology, including one on the life and science of Albert Einstein. The early part of the 20th century was a time of revolutionary change in physics. The atomic theory was approaching full acceptance. A new theory, quantum mechanics, drastically changed our concept of how physics works at the atomic and molecular scale. Special relativity changed our concept of space and time, and general relativity changed our concept of gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe. Albert Einstein was involved in all these things and was the leader in the development of special and general relativity. This course will discuss his life and science. The science portion of the class will be directed at lay people and presented in a non-mathematical way. Another course explores the history of anesthesia and anti-sepsis, highlighting the revolutionary changes these developments brought to surgery. There have been two necessary developments over the last 175 years which have made surgery possible in the form it takes today: the development of anesthesia beginning in 1846, and the invention of anti-sepsis (killing of bacteria), first used in 1867. This two week course will tell the stories of the people involved, and the discoveries they made, in the development of anesthesia and anti-sepsis.
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Special Interests and Hobbies
For those with specific interests, the catalog offers courses on topics like bonsai, celestial navigation, and the domino game of 42. Bonsai is the ancient Japanese practice of growing trees in pots. This presentation includes a discussion of the origins of bonsai as an artform, the general aesthetics, horticulture of the trees, and basic techniques. Celestial navigation is the primary method for determining position on earth by reference to the stars, planets, sun, and moon. This course will provide an overview of the principles of celestial navigation. We will cover the history of these methods and demonstrate determining latitude by the sun and by Polaris (north star) progressing to accurately locating both latitude and longitude with the modern sextant. Learn the National Game of Texas! The domino game of 42, invented in Texas, is like a card game played with dominoes. It is a fun and challenging trick-taking game. Learn the basics and practice honing your skills with fellow players.
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