Experiential Learning

What is Experiential Learning?

Experiential learning empowers students to take what they’ve learned in an LAH course and practice something meaningful outside of the classroom. With your professor’s guidance, your LAH experiential learning course will align real-world encounters with the learning outcomes for your course so that you practice and apply the most relevant knowledge and skills.

In Liberal Arts Honors, experiential learning courses enable students pair in-class activities with an experience outside of the classroom, such as original research, a study abroad experience, an internship, or community service. No matter what kind of experiential learning opportunity you pursue, your in-class activities will connect with your out-of-class work, and you'll reflect on your learning process with your classmates and instructor. 

LAH courses with experiential learning opportunities provide students with opportunities to:

• experience (take initiative and make decisions in their learning),
• reflect (connect feelings with ideas about the experience),
• think (reach conclusions and form theories that can be tested),
• and act (use feedback for iterative improvement).

Students should complete a reflection essay or exercise about their experiential learning opportunity. Experiential learning components should be at least one-third of the final course grade.

Examples of Experiential Learning Courses

Here are a few experiential learning courses we offer regularly. For the full list of experiential learning courses in LAH, and for the list of courses in other units that may be counted for the LAH experiential learning requirement, please see the LAH Scholars Portal.

LAH 351F Philanthropy/Non-Profit Orgs — Prof. Pam Paxton

This course will cover theories of giving, the nonprofit sector, and criticisms of both. A significant portion of the course will focus on providing students with the tools and skills to evaluate charitable programs for effectiveness using social scientific techniques. We will also address the relationship between philanthropic and state-sponsored programs and discuss issues of social responsibility that arise when billionaires, foundations, and corporate actors engage in philanthropic work.

The experiential learning portion of the class will introduce students first-hand to the dilemmas donors face as they evaluate nonprofits. Based on their own evaluations, students will have the opportunity to distribute significant funds (provided through The Philanthropy Lab and individual donors), to charitable organizations. Students will be placed into groups that will do extensive research on a category of nonprofits, ultimately deciding which charities will receive funds through discussion and debate.

LAH 351N Archival Advocacy: Experiential Learning — Prof. Elon Lang

Students will use digital archives and exhibits to amplify voices that actively promote social justice, cultural awareness, and service, and to test the ethical positions about impartiality and advocacy in archival and exhibit practices. Through a client-based semester-length service project, students would work with a service organization or cultural institution in the community that has materials or records that could provide a good subject for archival inquiry and an exhibit. The students would develop a series of scaffolded projects throughout the semester in which they would collaborate with members of the organization to access records, to digitize and describe a collection of their items, and to produce a public Omeka exhibit on selections from this collection. The first major project for the students would be a “pitch” that they would deliver to the organization in which they describe their research interests and also to make a case for what the organization itself might gain by opening itself up to the students’ digital archiving and historical inquiry. Their goal would be build toward a capstone project that situates the collection in the context of both the organization’s own institutional history and a broader history of the community in which the organization is situated, and then to promote the Omeka site on behalf of the organization.

This experiential learning class will cultivate professional skills in information science, cultural outreach, media literacy, and web design--as well as teamwork, independent research, critical thinking, work ethic discipline, accountability, and creativity. 

LAH 340L Legal Internships — Prof. Mark Levy

America’s laws, lawyers, and courts have charted and changed the course of American history. In our classroom discussions and readings, we will explore the role of lawyers and how the practice of law has shaped American society. As a component of Liberal Arts Frontiers, students in the Legal Internships clinic will also intern in law offices or legal settings and meet weekly in class to discuss and learn from each student-intern’s experience. The hands-on experience students gain in their public service internships will help shape our classroom discussions, from topics including legal ethics and professional development to legislative oversight and settlement negotiations. Students will learn about the practice of law and how lawyers serve the public interest while gaining practical experience and first-hand knowledge of different legal fields.

The cornerstone of the Legal Internships clinic will be your participation as a student-intern in a legal, public policy, judicial, or legislative office. While help will be provided to select your internship before the semester begins, the final choice of where you work will be yours. The role you choose should be discussed and decided upon with your host supervisor and the course instructor. For permission to register for this course, please fill out the course application. 

Substitutions: If you wish to substitute another upper-division course with significant experiential learning, you may submit a petition in the LAH Student Portal. This requires approval from the course instructor and from the Liberal Arts Honors Director.