Seminars

UC San Diego offers one-unit first-year and senior seminars, CAT-087 and CAT-192 respectively, to provide students with an opportunity to meet with faculty in a small-class environment. They are taught by senior UC San Diego faculty and researchers and are limited to twenty students. The seminars are taught by faculty in their fields of expertise and explore topics of intellectual importance. Students participate in critical discussion with a small group of peers and faculty. Topics differ every quarter.

CAT-088 is part of UC San Diego's Learning Sustainable Well-Being (LSW) program. LSW is sponsored by the T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion in collaboration with the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor.

CAT-090 is a one-unit reflection seminar designed for students who engage in summer experiential learning activities and would like to apply these activities towards the experiential learning requirement. Please note that only Dr. Geibel's course offered each fall quarter fulfills the requirement; other versions of CAT-090 do not satisfy the experiential learning requirement.

Preauthorization requests for CAT-090, CAT-087, and CAT-192 can be submitted through Triton Enrollment Authorization.

Fall 2026

CAT-090: Experiential Learning Seminar

Bill Robertson Geibel

Assistant Teaching Professor, CAT

Monday 12:00-12:50 p.m.

The purpose of CAT-090 is encouraging growth through facilitated reflection and analysis of students' experiential learning activities. Through guided prompts, discussions, and written reflections students will investigate their own perspectives, assumptions, and values and evaluate how these things informed their experience. Towards the end of the course, students will be asked to engage in reflection for action, a practice focused on improving student success by applying their cultivated knowledge to future career and academic decisions.