Editorial: Flash Seminars – liberating learning from the grade

Founded by two Hopkins seniors and inspired by an organization started at the University of Virginia, the new Flash Seminars strive to discuss academic ideas outside of the typical classroom setting. Each seminar invites a different professor to lead a group, capped at fifteen students, in a topic of the professor’s choosing. Designed to explore intellectual thought, these seminars act as a one-time event to discuss topics ranging from physics to poetry.

With only a short reading assigned for the students to complete beforehand, Flash Seminars are a low pressure way for both professors and undergraduates to talk about and explore new ideas outside of their chosen major or profession. The events have been gaining more interest on campus since they began during the Spring 2015 semester. Hopkins students are passionate about academics, and most students relish learning outside their majors.

Flash seminars encourage free thought and conversations between students who otherwise may not interact in an academic setting. The undergraduate-run organization provides one of the few chances that an engineering student can have an open dialogue with a Writing Seminars major about race relations in society, for example.

These discussions can act as a way for students to get out of their comfort zone and learn something completely new for an hour without worrying about the grade. Students are given the chance to learn what they want to learn and professors get to talk about their passions that may not fit into their traditional curriculum. Allowing professors to choose what they discuss and then placing them with fifteen students who actually want to be there will build a more close community across the University’s undergraduate schools.

The intimate settings give professors a chance to step away from their traditional teaching methods. Many professors, especially in STEM fields, deliver lectures in large halls where student-faculty interaction is unfortunately limited.

Since each seminars follows a different topic and is led by a new professor, the diversity of topics possible is limitless. If a goal of our University is to facilitate open discussion and promote free learning, it should encourage Flash Seminars to grow.

Overall, the Editorial Board thinks that the seminars provide an excellent way to stimulate academic thought and discussion across campus. We hope Flash Seminars become popular enough to start occurring on a weekly basis and reach increasingly more students. Every student should make an effort attend one.