University Writing Program

Students are offered a selection of topic-driven seminars that challenge them to formulate meaningful ideas, support them with evidence and analysis and convey them clearly and persuasively. Every seminar teaches transferable writing skills that students will use across the Brandeis curriculum and beyond. As students complete a series of writing assignments, they engage in a process of reading, drafting, reviewing and revising, working in peer groups and individually with their instructors. All students must complete a UWS during their first year at Brandeis.

The UWS curriculum consists of two major units: a comparative analysis and an extended unit on research. The comparative analysis unit consists of a close reading predraft assignment, a comparative analysis essay and a comparative genre analysis assignment. The CGA asks students to read writing from varying disciplines and work independently and in groups to identify how writing across the disciplines varies and is similar in content, style, and organization. The research unit consists of an extensive research proposal and a research essay.

As part of the University Writing Seminar, students attend one or more Critical Conversations in which faculty from different departments meet to discuss a topic chosen for that academic year; for 2021-2022, for example, the topic was "Community." This part of the course brings first-year students into direct contact with scholarly discourse and the variety of ways in which Brandeis faculty engage with each other and the world.

Students are invited to continue the conversations in follow-up, small-group discussions. Each University Writing Seminar also assigns an experiential-learning activity to expand the boundaries of the conventional classroom.

Course	Title	Instructor	Block
UWS-17B-1	Bodies of Evidence	Fischer, Katrin	B -9:05- 9:55 MWTh Rabb Grad Ctr 119
UWS-69A-2	Hip-Hop as Social Commentary	Lederman, Josh	B -9:05- 9:55 MWTh
UWS-70A-1	Beautiful People: Myths, Models, Makeovers	Richardson, Sophia	B -9:05- 9:55 MWTh
UWS-02B-1	Darwinian Dating	Jacobs, Elissa	C - 10:10- 11:00 MWTh
CSEM-01A-2	Composition Seminar	King, Ethan	C - 10:10- 11:00 MWTh
CSEM-01A-5	Composition Seminar	Nourse, Marsha	C - 10:10- 11:00 MWTh
UWS-02B-2	Darwinian Dating	Jacobs, Elissa	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-69A-1	Hip-Hop as Social Commentary	Lederman, Josh	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
CSEM-01A-6	Composition Seminar	Nourse, Marsha	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-73A-1	From Leptons to Neurons: The Science of Free Will	Paskell, Matthew	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-70A-2	Beautiful People: Myths, Models, Makeovers	Richardson, Sophia	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-37A-1	Biology of Morality	Jacobs, Elissa	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
UWS-64B-1	Resistance Mixtape	King, Ethan	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
UWS-69B-1	The Ethics of True Crime	Lederman, Josh	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
CSEM-01A-4	Composition Seminar	Moore, Scott	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
UWS-73A-2	From Leptons to Neurons: The Science of Free Will	Paskell, Matthew	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
UWS-64B-2	Resistance Mixtape	King, Ethan	F - 1:20p- 2:10p MWTh
UWS-69B-2	The Ethics of True Crime	Lederman, Josh	F - 1:20p- 2:10p MWTh
UWS-70B-1	Clones and Copies in Art, Literature, and Science	Richardson, Sophia	F - 1:20p- 2:10p MWTh
UWS-71A-1	Like, But Not like: The Uncanny Futures of Robots, Cyborgs, and Androids	Eggebrecht, Page	G -9:35- 10:55 T, F
UWS-72B-1	Driving Change: Student-Led Social Movements	Parrish, Anja	H -11:10- 12:30 T, F
UWS-72B-2	Driving Change: Student-Led Social Movements	Parrish, Anja	J - 12:45-2:05. T, F
UWS 66A-3	Travel and Self-Discovery	Cook, Collin	K - 2:30- 3:50.M, W
UWS 67B-1	Music Protests Social Change of 1960s	Nourse, Marsha	K - 2:30- 3:50.M, W
UWS73B-1	The Ethics of Technology	Paskell, Matthew	K - 2:30- 3:50.M, W
UWS-04A-1	Medical Ethics	Rourke, Lisa	K - 2:30- 3:50.M, W
UWS 66A-4	Travel and Self-Discovery	Cook, Collin	L -4:05p- 5:25 pM, W
UWS-71B-1	Zombies and Society	Gable, Sara Beth	L -4:05p- 5:25p M, W
UWS-62A-1	Video Games, Gamers, and Gaming Styles	Heazlewood-Dale	M - 5:40- 7:00 M, W
UWS-72A-1	Autobiographical Comics	Abrahams, Rafael	N - 2:20- 3:40 T, Th
CSEM-01A-1	Composition Seminar	Cook, Collin	N - 2:20- 3:40 T, Th
CSEM-01A-9	Composition Seminar	Cook, Collin	P - 3:55- 5:15 T, Th
UWS-62A-2	Video Games, Gamers, and Gaming Styles	Heazlewood-Dale	V - 5:30p- 6:50p T, Th

Course	Title	Sect	Instructor
UWS-43A-1	Storytelling in Business	Fischer, Katrin	B -9:05- 9:55 MWTh
UWS-70A-1	Beautiful People: Myths, Models, Makeovers	Richardson, Sophia	B -9:05- 9:55 MWTh
UWS-2B-1	Darwinian Dating	Jacobs, Elissa	C - 10:10- 11:00 MWTh
UWS-64B-1	Resistance Mixtape	King, Ethan	C - 10:10- 11:00 MWTh
UWS-37A-1	Biology of Morality	Jacobs, Elissa	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-69A-1	Hip-Hop as Social Commentary	Lederman, Josh	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-73B-1	The Ethics of Technology	Paskell, Matthew	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-70B-1	Clones and Copies in Art, Literature, and Science	Richardson, Sophia	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-37A-2	Biology of Morality	Jacobs, Elissa	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
UWS-65A-1	Everyday Apocalypse	King, Ethan	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
UWS-69B-1	The Ethics of True Crime	Lederman, Josh	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
CSEM-01A-1	Composition Seminar	Moore, Scott	E - 12:20- 1:10 MWTh
UWS-73B-2	The Ethics of Technology	Paskell, Matthew	D -11:15- 12:05 MWTh
UWS-65A-2	Everyday Apocalypse	King, Ethan	F - 1:20p- 2:10p MWTh
UWS-70B-2	Clones and Copies in Art, Literature, ad Science	Richardson, Sophia	F - 1:20p- 2:10p MWTh
UWS-71A-1	Like, But Not Like: The Uncanny Futures of Robots, Cyborgs, and Androids	Eggebrecht, Paige	G -9:35- 10:55 T, F
UWS-34A-1	Reading and Writing Boston	Nourse, Marsha	G -9:35- 10:55 T, F
UWS-34A-2	Reading and Writing Boston	Nourse, Marsha	H -11:10- 12:30 T, F
UWS-72B-1	Driving Change: Student-Led Social Movements	Parish, Anja	H -11:10- 12:30 T, F
UWS 66b-1	Sports, Money, and Power	Cook, Collin	K - 2:30- 3:50.M, W
UWS-73A-1	From Leptons to Neurons: The Science of Free Will	Paskell, Matthew	K - 2:30- 3:50.M, W
UWS-4A-1	Medical Ethics	Rourke, Lisa	K - 2:30- 3:50.M, W
UWS 66b-2	Sports, Money, and Power	Cook, Collin	L -4:05p- 5:25p M, W
UWS-71B-1	Zombies and Society	Gable, Sara Beth	L -4:05p- 5:25p M, W
UWS-71B-2	Zombies and Society	Gable, Sara Beth	M - 5:40p-7p M, W
UWS-62A-1	Video Games, Gamers, and Gaming Styles	Heazlewood-Dale	M - 5:40p-7p M, W
UWS-72A-1	Autobiographical Comics	Abrahams, Rafael	N - 2:20- 3:40 T, Th
UWS 66a-1	Travel and Self-Discovery	Cook, Collin	N - 2:20- 3:40 T, Th

Among animals, individuals choose mates based on biologically informative features such as long colorful tail feathers, large canines, or a red, swollen posterior. We typically assume that human attraction (and love) is much more nuanced and complex ... but is it? Many features that humans find beautiful or attractive, such as small waists, curvy hips, and large eyes, can be tied to biological explanations. Even behavioral features, such as nurturing behaviors, may be attractive for adaptive reasons. In this course, we will explore and write about biological explanations for these and many other aspects of human attraction. Using an evolutionary perspective, we will examine global patterns of attraction and challenge stereotypes of beauty. Do nice guys really finish last? Do traditionally attractive features in western cultures — such as low body weight — actually provide an evolutionary benefit, or might some preferences be culturally derived? For the final essay, students will supplement library research with data collection to produce an interdisciplinary research paper.

Elissa Jacobs

Close

Forensic science has helped to identify the dead, to solve crimes, and to bring culprits to justice. Forensic techniques, later discredited, have also led to false convictions: a man     was found guilty of rape and spent decades in prison before DNA tests confirmed his innocence; a convicted arsonist was proven innocent but had been exe­cuted years earlier.

This course invites students to explore the achievements and shortcomings of forensic science. We will investigate the work of forensic scientists, take a look at real-life cases to learn about the history and effectiveness of investigative techniques, and analyze how forensic science has been portrayed (and transformed) in popular television series such as CSI or Bones.  

Katrin Fischer

What is Boston? Boston is best known for baked beans, Fenway Park, The Boston Marathon, and over 50 colleges and universities that attract nearly 200,000 students in the Greater Metropolitan area. In the 1700's, Boston was called the 'Athens of America' because of its literate and engaged citizenry, wisdom, knowledge and education. Boston is a city of FIRSTS: the first public park, Boston Common, in 1634; the first public school, Boston Latin, in 1635; the first street-car subway system in the nation in 1897. In 2017, Boston ranked fifth in the world for innovations including cultural assets, education centers, transportation, and biking/walking accessibility. From the Esplanade on the Charles River, the Back Bay, Fens and Boston Common to the newer 15-acre Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the beauty of Boston is unsurpassed. In this section of UWS, we will be using material on the City of Boston and its neighborhoods, with readings that focus on the historical, sociological, literary and contemporary beat of the city. The main goal for UWS is to further develop your academic research and writing skills , and this course will utilize the City of Boston as a textbook, enabling you to 'experience' Boston, close to where you have chosen to spend your college years. 

Humans often consider themselves to be "the moral animal," distinguished from other animals by our complex and socially derived systems of morality, characterized by empathy and cooperation. However, when comparing humans with the rest of the animal world, are we really so different? In this course, we will examine through discussion and writing the degree to which human morality is grounded in our evolutionary past. We will explore the development of human morality during childhood and adulthood through the lens of evolution and will look at classic scientific tests of morality/ethics (e.g., the trolley problem). Additionally, we will engage with evidence for morality in non-human species and probe the degree to which our primate relatives engage in altruistic, empathetic, and moral behaviors. During the final paper, students will have the freedom to choose their own topic and to utilize interdisciplinary literature in their exploration of the nature and nurture of morality. Usually offered every year.

Elissa Jacobs

Storytelling plays a crucial role in our lives. We draw on stories to make meaning of ourselves and others, to shed light on our experiences, and to express who we are or would like to be. The same holds true for businesses. Storytelling is not only a core competency of business leaders but an indispensable component of functional organizations. Successful companies take pride in compelling stories; troubled companies tend to lack institutional stories and a culture of storytelling. Capable business leaders are effective storytellers, and strategic storytelling has been a proven means of initiating change and of turning companies around. This course invites students to investigate the power of stories and storytelling in business contexts. By analyzing texts from various media, we will discuss questions such as: What characterizes effective stories? What is the importance of storytelling and story-making in companies? How can storytelling bring about organizational change? Which traits do storytellers and business leaders share? What is the connection between storytelling and leadership?

Katrin Fischer

Video games afford opportunities to immerse ourselves in virtual worlds in an interactive and engaging manner. The creativity and imagination behind game design necessitate the interaction of a wide range of skills: coding, graphic design, storytelling, musical composition, and sound design.

How is it that we can spend hours picking up virtual weeds in Animal Crossing, be fearful of turtle shells in Mario Kart, or experience immense satisfaction when leveling up our Pokemon or beating a boss in Dark Souls? This course addresses these questions by tracing the development of video games from the early pixelated heroes of Mario and Pac-Man to online spaces that involve the global participation of millions of people, such as League of Legends and Call of Duty. Students are required to think critically about the virtual worlds they inhabit and consider how video games implement play, immersion, and engagement and how their unique function as an interactive medium has evolved throughout the latter half of the 20th century to the present day. The interdisciplinary nature of game studies allows students to think and write critically on an array of topics concerning narrative, immersion, gender, music, technology, and game design

James Heazlewood-Dale

This course considers music as a radical political tool for social justice. Guided by different genres of music and different social justice issues, we will listen to politically resonant songs in order to explore how music not only actively participates in and shapes our culture, but also offers modes of resistance to regimes of power. From the pro-labor and anti-war politics of folk music, the anti-establishment and anti-normative bents of punk, and the racial and social justice orientations of hip-hop, students will examine how music fights power, encourages activism, and effects social change. This course is designed in such a way that students may participate fully regardless of the level of their prior musical knowledge or experience. All of the music we will be examining involves texts that are linguistic, sonic, and occasionally, in the case of music videos, visual. Our study of these musical texts will be enhanced through various critical and theoretical approaches to the intersections of race, gender, and class. For final research papers, students will be encouraged to develop a research topic about music and social justice issues that are meaningful to them. 

Ethan King 

Our contemporary moment has been marked by various catastrophes and crises: the pandemic, the climate emergency, the refugee crisis, widening economic disparities, rising nationalist extremism, and racial inequalities and police violence. These crises have combined to create a present moment of profound uncertainty and growing unrest, and daily life has become undergirded by a rising tide of anxiety. Using contemporary events and recent cultural texts as sites of inquiry about the global tumult of our present, students will consider how the convergence of the everyday and the catastrophic frame our “new normal,” as well as how distinctions between normalcy and emergency are connected to media narratives, corporate agendas, and political rhetoric and policy. Altogether, the course invites students to examine our experience of the contemporary world from multiple lenses and encourages students to research, learn, write about, and potentially reimagine the social, economic, and environmental challenges of our time.

Ethan King

The ocean, the open road, and the automobile all entice us to travel. From Thelma and Louise, a female buddy road crime film, to acclaimed food critic Anthony Bourdain, who samples foods from across the globe, travel has long worked in popular culture to offer the tantalizing possibilities of reinvention, of getting lost, of escape into the new. However, travel is more than just a romantic fantasy about self-transformation. In fact, British travel essayist Pico Iyer argues that our travel experiences are always structured by our preconceptions about ourselves and the world; for Iyer, we can never completely escape from ourselves. Building on the ideas of Iyer and others, we will investigate what we do when we travel and the motivations that drive the urge to explore. How does travel relate to identity, gender, and self-discovery? In this course, we will probe this question and others by watching films and reading texts from a variety of genres and disciplines, examining the desires, pressures, and delusions that propel us to hit the open road or take flight. Building on ideas from the course, students will be encouraged to write papers that engage with issues related to travel and self-exploration that they find compelling.

Collin Cook

Despite being united by the common desire to win, few relationships in popular culture are as fraught as the relationship between athletes and the various organizational structures—teams, leagues, coaches, agents—of sports. Indeed, given the amount of money at stake, the sports industry’s many competing interests make it a productive case study for thinking about this ever-shifting balance of power. Beginning with the film Jerry Maguire, this course will track these ongoing power negotiations by looking at a variety of relationships within sports, attempting to understand how different actors—athletes, coaches, owners—try to win, maintain dominance, and get paid. How do organizations respond, for example, when individual players like Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers upset the traditional hierarchies that govern teams? Are some coaching styles—such as those of Steve Kerr or Phil Jackson—better suited than others to balancing the competing personalities and interests of professional sports? To further engage with the topics we discuss, students will be encouraged to write papers that grapple with sports-related questions and issues of power dynamics that are of interest to them.

Collin Cook

 The Times They Are A-Changin …When Bob Dylan wrote this song in the early1960s, it was the time of political and military upheaval in America. Dylan was trying to rally people to come together to bring about needed change in our society: culturally, socially, and politically. The decade marked revolutionary ideas and turmoil, and the most prevalent included individual freedoms, Civil Rights, Women’s Liberation, the Viet Nam controversy, Woodstock, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Gay Liberation, and more. Students played a major role in bringing about change as campus protests occurred across America. To explore their role, we will start by examining primary sources and personal narratives between 1960 and 1974 from the extensive archive at Brandeis. Through a series of writing assignments, this UWS will provide students an opportunity to examine the Sixties phenomena, first through the lens of music, then through a comparative analysis of controversies, and finally through research into movements that accomplished social change. 

Marsha Nourse

This course offers an examination of hip-hop as a form of social commentary, focusing on how hip-hop artists use their music to address social, political, and cultural issues. Through readings, discussions, and listening exercises, we will explore how hip-hop artists have commented on topics such as racism, police brutality, poverty, and other social issues.

Students will be encouraged to engage in critical thinking and discussion about the social issues addressed in hip-hop music, and to analyze how these messages are conveyed through the music. 

By the end of the course, students will have an understanding of how hip-hop can be used as a form of social commentary, and will have developed the skills necessary to analyze any genre of text that addresses social issues.

 Joshua Lederman

In recent news, Adnan Syed – the lead figure in the seminal true crime podcast Serial – was released from prison after 23 years. Syed had been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Hay Min Lee, but the podcast shed enough doubt on the conviction that a court eventually overturned it, leading to Syed’s release. At the same time, many have noted that the emergence of true crime podcasts and docuseries has its roots in the exploitation of people’s misery for the entertainment of the masses (and the financial benefit of the media outlets). In this course, we will examine the ethics of this genre. We will read texts in ethical philosophy (authors like Kant, James, and Mill), as well as arguments about true crime series themselves. In the end, we will have examined some of our own beliefs about right and wrong, and will have conducted a critical investigation into the culture that surrounds us. 

 Joshua Lederman

Rigorous controlled experiments have now confirmed what has always intuitively seemed true: being beautiful has its advantages. But how do we define, identify, and recognize beauty? Why do we seek it out; why must we strive so hard to achieve it? And why does it often have such an ugly underbelly? This course will examine culturally and historically contingent ways of defining beauty, analyzing how constructs of racialized, classed, and gendered attributes at different historical moments factor into what counts as beautiful, fashionable, or desirable. We also will parse the values and ideals promoted by our own moment through a wide variety of selections from recent pop-culture and mass-media campaigns: music videos, such as Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurts,” reality TV clips, such as America’s Next Top Model, Instagram trends including #iweigh and #freethepuff, and advertisements for cosmetics and clothing, such as Aerie’s “real” campaign and Sephora’s “We Belong to Something Beautiful.” Nonfiction articles, book chapters, and documentary clips on the globalized beauty industry (cosmetics, plastic surgery) will offer critical and theoretical lenses to consider where and how beauty works.

Sophia Richardson

In the battle between the original and the clone, who wins? If they are identical, does it matter? In this course we will examine what it means to make a copy or a clone, and what it might mean to be a copy or clone. We will analyze how different technologies of reproduction – mirrors, lenses, the printing press, cameras, computers, bodies – both motivate and alter the impulse to copy. As we analyze a wide array of media including literature, film, painting, photography, dance, and music, we will investigate how form shapes – and is shaped by – the anxieties and opportunities afforded by replication. What makes a good copy? Why is the relationship between original and copy so contested? How do cloning and copying – whether historical or present-day – force us to rethink the boundary between life and art, to renegotiate our ideas of what it means to be a human, a self, a unique individual? Texts may include clips from films such as The Matrix and television series such as Black Mirror as well as recent articles on innovations in artificial intelligence and bio-technology.

Sophia Richardson

 

The Zombie genre is a staple of horror. But in the same way that most art is a reflection of society, authors, filmmakers and creators have used the Zombie hoard to interrogate important issues in society. Max Brook’s World War Z is really a critique of the failures of global disaster preparedness. George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead has been broadly interpreted as a meditation on consumer culture. Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend asks the question “what does it mean to be human?” The Un-dead are a blank canvas, ready to become what we believe them to be. In this way, they are an effective vehicle for cultural commentary. This class will use novels, comics, film and television to investigate the zombie genre as a form of social critique. Topics will include immigration and migration, disaster preparedness, sickness and death, the essence of humanity, mourning and loss, and climate change. This class will also draw on scholarly literature in history, English, medicine, sociology, and anthropology.

Sara Beth Gable

Autobiography is an extremely popular genre among comics artists. Masterpieces like Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home are now common inclusions in high school and college curricula. These works share an uncanny ability to take difficult subjects — e.g. warfare, violence, and family trauma — and portray them in a human dimension that is accessible to readers of all ages and backgrounds. Other texts in the genre depict lighter subject matter, but these also claim to represent the past through images drawn much later in time than the episodes that they depict actually occurred. What is it about comics as a medium that draws artists to reflect on their personal experiences and enchants readers to engage? What should we make of the connection between lived reality and its portrayal in comics? Are comics more or less “real” than other media like text, photography, film, and paint? 

In this course, we will pair autobiographical comics with theory from various disciplines: art and visual representation, history and narrativization, and psychology and memory studies. Students will be encouraged to write papers that investigate the relationship between comics, the self, and the notion of truth.

Rafael Abrahams

In January of 1969, black students and other students of color at Brandeis led an 11-day sit-in at Ford Hall, an administrative building, and issued a list of 10 demands that promoted racial justice. Brandeis students aren’t unique: students and young adults play a critical role in nearly every social movement. For generations, youth across the world have used innovative tactics to protest inequality, racism, violence, and human rights violations. Is the rest of the world listening? How do these movements form and how are they portrayed in media and pop culture? Why do they succeed or fail? This course utilizes documentaries, archives, pop culture, and scholarly histories to explore the tactics of student and youth-led groups through the intersecting lenses of race, gender identity, citizenship, and sexuality. Throughout the semester, students will reflect on these activists’ impact on social justice movements around the world as well as how authorities and media view their tactics. During the final paper, students will have the freedom to choose their own topic and to utilize interdisciplinary literature in their exploration of how youth activism shape our understanding of how to fight for change.

Anja Parish

In The Matrix, Neo believes he is the author of his own life. But is he really? As it turns out, intelligent machines have enslaved the minds of humans, and Neo is merely a cog in their grand scheme to access solar energy. While this film may seem far-fetched, philosophers have debated whether or not we truly have free will for millennia. At stake is our understanding of ourselves, our place in the world, and how we ought to judge the behavior of others. While the free will question is far from settled, the tools of science may be able to get us closer to an answer. From the fundamental structure of the universe to how our brains operate, science can help determine what kind of control is possible and how we actually make decisions. This course will examine the implications of theories and experiments in physics, psychology, and neuroscience for the free will debate. Course material may include readings from philosophy, science, and literature, as well as popular films like The Matrix and Minority Report.

Matthew Paskell

Chat GPT has generated much anxiety in professional and academic arenas. Will AI eliminate jobs or become smart enough to manipulate humans? Films such as Her prey on these fears when the film’s protagonist falls in love with and takes advice from his AI assistant, Samantha. Looking beyond AI, the use of technology raises a host of other questions. For example, should social media companies restrict speech on their platforms? Do interactions in video games have different social rules than real life? These questions each come with their own distinct considerations but are united by a common theme—life in the digital age and the related ethical implications. Determining our moral obligations when using or developing technology has important consequences, ranging from our interpersonal relationships to the very fate of humanity. This course will examine ethical issues arising from various kinds of technological advancement, present and future. Course material may include readings from philosophy, science, and literature, as well as popular films like Ex Machina, Transcendence, and Her.

Matthew Paskell

Yes and no. On the one hand, each writing seminar has the same types of assignments and course policies. On the other hand, each seminar uses a different topic. 

Both options are viable, but students who take UWS in the fall can then apply what they’ve learned to their spring courses. Consult Academic Advising if you have further questions.

UWS is a full-credit course. It counts as one of the 32 courses required for graduation.

UWS instructors work closely with their students, providing one-on-one tutorials, sustained attention to individual development and extensive comments on drafts. With larger classes, instructors could not give this kind of individualized attention.

Depending on availability, students may change their UWS to another in the same semester.

UWS is a first-year requirement. If you do not fulfill it during your first year, you may be placed on academic probation.

An online writing assessment, taken in the spring before entering Brandeis, helps the Writing Program reach out to students who might most benefit from what the Composition Seminar has to offer. (Students wishing to enroll directly into CSEM without taking the online assessment may do so.)

International students must take UWS in their first or second semester at Brandeis. Nonnative English writers are strongly encouraged to sign up for free tutoring in the English Language Programs.

The Writing Center offers support for all students, including those enrolled in UWS, with 30- and 60-minute one-on-one tutorials available by appointment. The Writing Center also offers workshops on each of the major UWS assignments, including the lens paper and research paper.