Like many undergraduates, Jami Zeller had never taken a sociology course before college. As a freshman at the University of Florida, she enrolled in SYG2000, an introductory sociology course, because she was interested in the subject matter and the class fulfilled a general education graduation requirement.
“I took the course because I thought it would be interesting and ended up really loving it,” she said. “I’m someone who follows the news very closely and is very politically minded and very conscious about social issues… I’d never learned about those things in a classroom setting before.”
Zeller ultimately decided to major in sociology. But starting next school year, freshmen will have less incentive to take the course that helped shape the trajectory of her academic career…