2015 Summer Reading Assignment for AUCA Freshmen

August 17, 2015

Dear Incoming Freshmen 2015,

We look forward to meeting you during the Orientation program on August 17 – 28, 2015. We are proud to haveyou as our new students and welcome you into our community of friends, colleagues, and scholars! This is a new beginning for both students and family members; beginnings that we hope you are ready to explore.

The Orientation program is designed to facilitate the transition between your previous learning experience and the one that awaits you at the University. This year’s program adopts the theme of “Change and Development”. Our Orientation events are packed with academic, social, and community service learning activities that foster responsiblefreedom and AUCA’s values as a liberal arts institution. The goal of the academic sessions is to introduce you to the interdisciplinary and challenging study culture at AUCA, which includes creative, yet fun, learning experiences, and intensive writing across a variety of genres and texts.

An important part of your preparation for the Orientation program (and fall semester as well) is your summerreading assignment. All first year students are expected to read and reflect on “The Allegory of the Cave” from one of the books of Plato’s Republic and passages from Natural Selection "Struggle for Existence” by Charles Darwin. We would like you to mark the texts up: underline passages, make comments in the margins, and on aseparate sheet reflect on how these texts might relate to your own life at this time. Bring these with you whenyou come to AUCA in August. We will use your thoughts as the starting point for our conversations. We hope that during orientation in August this initial thinking about the texts will lead to larger conversations and that each ofyou will seize this opportunity to engage yourself in a dialogue with your peers and professors. This will help you prepare academically and integrate more smoothly into the larger unique intellectual community and culture of our University.

In the fall and spring semesters, these two texts alongside other texts will be the common readings for all of you inyour First Year Seminar course. As you begin your journey towards the completion of a liberal arts education at AUCA, these shared readings and other equally engaging and challenging texts will introduce you to andencompass the University’s values that will broaden your world, increase and deepen your understanding of complex issues. Engaging with these texts will bring people of diverse backgrounds together and create a commonground for discussion among faculty, students and friends during the Orientation program as well as throughoutthe years to come.

The summer reading assignment can be downloaded at: https://auca.kg/en/summer_reading/

If you have problems in uploading the text (the page is not found or other such technical problems), you may email to kami.mateeva@gmail.com or esenkulovab@gmail.com or kamilya.kadyrova@gmail.com to request the text be sent to your email.

We look forward to welcoming you in AUCA! The Orientation Program will start at 08:30 AM on August 17, 2015.Please, come to AUCA at this time and date.

Sincerely,

Kamila Mateeva and Begaiym Esenkulova

Co-Directors, Academic Orientation Program

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