Engaging with the Community through Service Learning

All first-year seminars share an emphasis on navigating the Berklee experience, building a foundation for success as a student and an artist, and creating a sense of community among students and faculty. This seminar’s unique focus is on the artist’s engagement with the community. Through in-class and service activities, students will learn about the connections between cultural, political, and social conditions and the needs of specific populations within the community. This course helps students discover and advocate for issues facing our community and creates a safe, reflective space for discourse and debate. It gives students tools to approach situations, to put their own and their classmates’ beliefs and values in context, expose their own biases, and examine the issues surrounding their service assignment through multiple lenses. Students will engage in weekly reflections activities and draw upon their skills and concerns as artists to reach for a more informed, nuanced, and open-minded grasp of the world.