The FOCUS Program is a voluntary, interdisciplinary academic curriculum for freshmen that was first established at Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

. FOCUS is an acronym that stands for "First-year Opportunity for Comprehensive, Unified Study."

Program at Duke University

Duke students who register for FOCUS will be registered in two seminars chosen from a set of four classes offered for their 'cluster,' along with a half-credit discussion course that takes place over a meal with their professors and guest speakers. FOCUS allows students to take part in small classes and those in the same cluster for the fall semester also live in the same dormitory on East Campus.

Current programs for the 2010-2011 academic year at Duke include the following topics:

Fall

• Artists at Work
• Between Europe and Asia: Explorations in Culture, Law & Cognitive Science
• Engineering Frontiers
• Ethics Leadership and Global Citizenship
• Evolution and Humankind
• Exploring the Mind
• Faces of Science
• The Genome Revolution and Its Impact on Society
• Global Health: Local and International Disparities
• Memory and Invention: Medieval and Renaissance Worlds
• Modeling in the Economic and Social Sciences
• Muslim Cultures
• The Power of Ideas
• Power of Language
• Visions of Freedom

External links

• Duke FOCUS homepage
• Duke University