Course Theme: The Future of Work

“Take This Job and Shove It!’ twanged country singer Johnny Paycheck in 1978, but in the United States today, millions of people cannot find any job to “shove.”  The unemployment rate continues to hover around 9%, and the pace of new job creation lags far behind the demand. Michael Pence, writing in The Wall Street Journal, claims that the “old jobs are not coming back,” so workers had best be prepared to seek the new ones. But what are those new jobs, and what skills do people need to get them? This multidisciplinary version of ENGH 302 will focus on this challenging and changing workforce environment, and the accompanying readings and projects will in some way relate to this rather large area of inquiry.

Overview of ENGH 302 Multidisciplinary

ENGH 302-Multidisciplinary (302M) is a course designed to build on the writing and research skills you have learned in English 101 and other courses, and to introduce you to advanced problem-solving strategies for academic and post-academic writing, with special attention to strategies applicable to particular disciplines. As a General Education course, English 302 is designed to improve critical thinking skills that will be useful to you in many academic and professional settings. Overall, English 302M will help you learn to adapt your writing to common purposes and audience needs, conduct and synthesize research, thoughtfully use common technologies as part of your research and writing process, and produce writing that employs the organizational techniques and genres typical in your field of study or professional endeavors. This course will help you develop a range of flexible writing and revising strategies so you can meet readers’ expectations without compromising your own voice, convictions, or style.

All course materials will be available on Blackboard, version 9.1, accessible via the MyMason Portal at http://mymason.gmu.edu. Log on using your Mason Mail username and password and select the “Courses” tab.