Tufts Alum and Visiting Lecturer Jonathan Rosen teaches Behind the Reporter’s Notebook: The Practice of Global Journalism in the 21st Century.

Jack Waisel's Explorations course, Presidential Campaigns: The Evolution of Strategies and Tactics, has first-year students exploring the characteristics of winning (and losing) campaigns while investigating the unique qualities of the 2020 election.

Now with a little distance from the end of spring classes, we wanted to reflect on the phenomenal way that everyone connected to the ExCollege rose to the challenge posed by the pandemic and the rapid transition to online learning. 

Two seniors combined philosophy and film in their Spring 2020 ExCollege course to inspire students to search for their place in the world.

Everyone’s talking about The Great British Bake Off, Antoni from Queer Eye visited Tufts, and food blogs for all kinds of specialized diets fill Instagram feeds... In recent years, food-related content has taken off to become a dominant force in mainstream media. This semester, Tufts alumna Denise Drower Swidey (A90) is teaching An Insider’s Guide to the World of Food Media, in which students explore the history of food media’s popularization and have a chance to participate in the practice.

Every ExCollege course has its own special and unique moments. For Famous Trials in U.S. History, the Tuesday evening class shared an experience to remember for a lifetime: the announcement that the remainder of the semester was to be completed remotely. For the students — the majority of whom are seniors — the news was shocking and emotional.

The term “wandering” is defined as traveling aimlessly from place to place. But what does it mean to wander in a game? How does exploration in videogames reflect the real world and to lived experiences? Dr. Melissa Kagen and her students take on these questions and more in the Spring 2020 ExCollege class Wandering Games: Play, Performance, Protest. 

Rage, fear, elation, trepidation: these are just some of the emotions brought out by political discussion in today's divisive climate. On the other hand, many young people feel desensitized to political drama and hopeless about the prospect of change. How do we negotiate these feelings, or lack thereof? How can we relate what we feel to how we act?

With a wave of true crime podcasts and television programs surging in popularity recently, people seem more fascinated than ever in understanding the genre's connection to the real world. Yet, this Spring 2020 course asks how true crime in modern media shapes viewers' perception of crime. The truth can be much more distressing.