Explore everything CMCI has to offer in a course taken by all CMCI freshmen.
Learn with faculty and students from different academic specialties and join them in hands-on projects.

"Concepts and Creativity lets you look at all of the majors in CMCI and see what is for you." – Bailey Gannett, Class of 2019

Discover new ideas from many different majors

In Concepts and Creativity, you’ll study:

  • Conversation – How do we use communication to construct and change our worlds?
  • Storytelling – ­How do the stories we tell shape our culture?
  • Image – How do we use images to understand our world? Can an image have a universal meaning?
  • Information ­– How are information and digital technologies influencing our lives, our identities and our world?

The course is divided into four sections (two per semester), each taught by a professor from a different CMCI department. Each section will teach you fundamental skills, as well as the deeper intellectual frameworks behind the subject.

By studying such a variety of subjects in your first two semesters, you’ll have the best chance of finding the major that’s right for you. Even if you already know your calling, Concepts and Creativity is an opportunity to gain new perspectives.

"This class is not taught out of a textbook." – Josie Hoien, Class of 2019

Get hands-on experience

Here are a few hands-on projects you’ll complete in Concepts and Creativity:

  • Interview people in the field
  • Produce videos and podcasts
  • Write stories
  • Speak in front of your peers
  • Collect and analyze data
  • Advocate for an issue that’s important to you

By the end of the year, you’ll have your own portfolio of work. And your new analytical and production skills will give you the foundation for more advanced classwork in whatever major you choose.

Photo of Josie Hoien

Meet Josie Hoien

When freshman Josie Hoien started her first semester, she knew she liked writing and expressing herself creatively, but she wasn’t sure which major could help her shape those interests. Concepts and Creativity is helping her find answers. 

“I get exposure to all of the majors within CMCI. It turns out I’m also really passionate about communication, media production and the stories you can tell.” The class, she says, “is so hands-on. They’re teaching you to be a communicator and media producer by communicating and producing media right in the class.”

After her first semester of Concepts and Creativity, Hoien knew she wanted to learn more about media production, so she enrolled in a class in CMCI’s Department of Critical Media Practices. She’s still exploring  her career choices, but “storytelling, in whatever shape or form, is what I want to do."

“Our recitation group is like a second family. We’re very close because it’s a very conversational class.” –Taylor Glicksberg, Class of 2019

Make new friends

Concepts and Creativity is a shared experience for all CMCI freshmen, so on your first day of class, you’ll walk into a room full of students with similar interests, goals and even anxieties.

The course’s small discussion groups and media labs will make it easy to meet and work with your classmates. Outside of class, you’ll see your professors and fellow students at class-related film screenings, study sessions, campus discussions and other events.

The friends you make in Concepts and Creativity will go on to pursue the range of majors offered by CMCI, giving you a diverse set of perspectives to draw upon for the rest of your time at CU.

“You do a lot of things in Concepts and Creativity you didn’t think you would do.” – Jake Mauff, Class of 2019

Challenge yourself

Concepts and Creativity will push you to think and work in new ways.

You’ll learn how to have tough conversations.

Your academic work will rise to a collegiate level.

You’ll become a critical consumer of news and culture.

And you’ll learn how to advocate effectively for issues you care about.

Examples of Student Work