First-Year Seminars
SPHHS First-Year Seminar Course Descriptions - Fall 2025
191PHHS14 FYS- U-Thrive: Explore Public Health and Health Sciences
Primary Audience: First-year students only (freshman of sophomore status)
This seminar will support your transition to college and introduce you to a topic in public health and health sciences. The first six weeks will provide foundational skills for students to thrive at UMass. The last seven weeks will focus on exploring a topic in public health and health sciences of your choosing. Please see PHHS course topics below:
191PHHS14; Sections (01, 06): Move More, Feel Better: How Physical Activity Fights Chronic Illness
191PHHS14; Section (01): Move More, Feel Better: How Physical Activity Fights Chronic Illness; Class number: 69363; Mo 10:10AM - 11:00AM
191PHHS14; Section (06): Move More, Feel Better: How Physical Activity Fights Chronic Illness; Class number: 69368; Wed 9:05AM - 9:55AM
In this course we will dive into how staying active helps us live healthier, longer lives. We’ll explore how physical activity can prevent or manage common long-term health problems like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and depression. We’ll also learn about how different communities have more or less access to safe, fun places to be active—and how that can affect health.
This part of the course will be interactive and beginner-friendly. We'll look at real-life examples, watch short videos, and even try simple activities that show how movement supports our bodies and minds. By the end, students will feel more confident talking about physical activity as a tool for better health and will come up with their own ideas for promoting active lifestyles in different communities.
191PHHS14; Sections (02): Local Voices of Public Health: Real People, Real Imact
191PHHS14; Section (02): Local Voices of Public Health: Real People, Real Impact; Class number: 69364; Mo 11:15AM - 12:05PM
Curious about how real people in local communities are changing lives through public health? In this course you will hear directly from inspiring local changemakers from the Pioneer Valley--like food bank coordinators, community garden organizers, epidemiologists, health educators, environmental scientists, and more--who are tackling big issues in real time. This course will provide you with an opportunity to reflect on what you've learned, engage with your community through hands-on assignments, and even discover potential internship opportunities.
191PHHS14; Sections (03, 07, 08): Reimagining Healthcare
191PHHS14; Section (03): Reimagining Healthcare; Class number: 69365; Thurs 4:00PM - 4:50PM
191PHHS14; Section (07): Reimagining Healthcare; Class number: 69369; Wed 12:20PM - 1:10PM
191PHHS14; Section (08): Reimagining Healthcare; Class number: 69370; Thurs 11:30AM - 12:20PM
Why do some lives receive more support and opportunities for their health to thrive while others face neglect and limited resources - Whose lives matter? What does it look like to center community perspectives and build partnerships that can help us to reimagine healthcare? If hospitals were no longer to exist, where would people receive healthcare? In this course, you will explore these questions by learning about the social determinants of health and how they are directly associated with health disparities seen especially in BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities. We will closely examine how oppressive systems operate both within and beyond the medical system, profoundly impacting people and continuing to foster mistrust today. During the course, students will actively participate in critical thinking exercises to develop solutions aimed at advancing health equity through a range of activities. This includes exploring how to redirect healthcare away from traditional brick and mortar practices, break down silos, and enhance healthcare accessibility for all. As a result of this class, students will gain a greater understanding of how to promote health equity and community health by employing strategies such as asset building and participatory approaches to address health disparities effectively.
191PHHS14; Sections (04, 05, 09): A Backstage Pass to Health: A Tour of Wellbeing through SPHHS
191PHHS14; Section (04): A Backstage Pass to Health: A Tour of Wellbeing through SPHHS; Class number: 69366; Tu 11:30AM -12:20PM
191PHHS14; Section (05): A Backstage Pass to Health: A Tour of Wellbeing through SPHHS; Class number: 69367; Tu 4:00PM - 4:50PM
191PHHS14; Section (09): A Backstage Pass to Health: A Tour of Wellbeing through SPHHS; Class number: 69371; Fr 11:15AM - 12:05PM
This seminar will examine how each of the majors within SPHHS studies health and what keeps us healthy. The goal of this class is for students to explore and understand the intersections of their major with other majors within SPHHS and to gain a greater sense of how to maintain their wellbeing from a scientifically-oriented point of view as their needs evolve over time. In addition to exploring how they can reinforce wellbeing in these areas as they adjust to university life, students will also have the opportunity to dig deeper into their own majors and subfields within them.
191PHHS14; Section (10): Public Health Research A to Z: Discover, Ask, Explore!
191PHHS14; Section (10): Public Health Research A to Z: Discover, Ask, Explore!; Class number: 69372; Fr 1:25AM - 2:15PM
Students will take a fun and friendly journey through the world of public health research. We'll start with simple questions like: What makes a good research idea? How do you find reliable information? Then, we’ll learn about how to plan a study, think about ethics, and understand basic results.
Students will work in small groups, brainstorm creative ideas, and learn to ask big questions about real health issues. We’ll keep things practical, using examples that make research feel clear and doable. By the end, students will feel ready to design a mini research project and will understand the building blocks of how we learn new things in public health.
191PHHS14; Section (11): Leadership and Health
191PHHS14; Section (11): Leadership and Health; Class number: 69373; Fr 10:10AM - 11:00AM
What does it mean to be a leader? What does it take to become a leader? This course will cover features of leadership that are important for success in health professions and will discuss how leadership skills shape the responses that individuals, organizations, and nations can use to influence health. Students will be actively engaged in learning about these issues from a local, national, and global perspective as well as those within our UMass campus, and will explore their own leadership style and skills
191PHHS14; Section (12): The Power of Storytelling in Public Health
191PHHS14; Section (12): The Power of Storytelling in Public Health; Class number: 69374; Th 4:10PM - 5:00PM
This seminar explores critical narrative intervention as a powerful, participatory, and justice-oriented approach to public health. Students will engage with foundational concepts like health equity, social determinants of health, intersectionality, and counternarratives while learning how storytelling can help to co-create knowledge, challenge dominant narratives, and promote healing. Through discussion, hands-on activities, and creative methods like comics, digital storytelling, photovoice, poetry, and graffiti storytelling, students will critically examine approaches and ethical considerations and learn arts-based methods. Together, we’ll explore how storytelling can be a form of activist inquiry that fosters joy, builds community, and confronts systems of inequities in public health.
191PHHS15 FYS- Thriving in Transition
191PHHS15; Section (01): Thriving in Transition; Class number: 69378: Mo 9:05AM - 9:55AM
191PHHS15; Section (02): Thriving in Transition; Class number: 69379: Mo 12:20PM - 1:10PM
191PHHS15; Section (03): Thriving in Transition; Class number: 69380: Mo 1:25PM - 2:15PM
This course will support your transition to college while allowing you to discover your strengths and explore resilience. The first six weeks will provide foundational skills for students to thrive at UMass. During the last seven weeks, students will engage in mindfulness and writing exercises to manage stress, build resilience, and enhance leadership. The curriculum promotes personal growth in adversity and enhances leadership capabilities, covering topics like strengths-based practice, leadership styles, social belonging, and resilience. The course also reviews current research on stress and thriving, with practical exercises to develop self-regulation, prosocial behavior, and adaptive success.