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Life Worth Living is an initiative of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School.
San José State Univ PHIL 44HA
Design Your Life, Design Your Semester, Design Your World
Riana Betzler is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at San José State University. Her teaching and research focuses on the philosophy and ethics of science.
What does it mean to live the good life—and how do you begin building it now? This course connects philosophy, community, and college life to help students create lives of meaning and purpose.
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Design Your Life, Design Your Semester, Design Your World
PHIL 44HA
San Jose State University
Taught by Riana Betzler
Course Description
We all want to live "the good life." But what does this mean? And how do we get there, both in the short term (here at SJSU) and in the long term? Are money, fame, and success the keys to the good life? What about family, community, service, education, and spirituality? How will you know when you have “made it”?
This course offers a space for thinking about the most central of questions: What is the good life? And how do we get it? In this class, we’ll examine these questions by engaging with philosophical materials (texts and audiovisual materials) but also by going out into our world and engaging with our communities.
We’ll start by finding our footing and a sense of home here at SJSU. We’ll learn how to navigate college and we’ll think about how our educational pursuits fit in with our wider values. Then, we’ll begin to think more broadly about how to build a career, life, and world that expresses our values and has meaning. Along the way, we’ll see how philosophical texts and the many events, performances, and lectures at SJSU – as well as conversations with our wider communities and acts of service within them – can continually inform our ideas about the good life.
Design Your Life, Design Your Semester, Design Your World
PHIL 44HA
San Jose State University
Taught by Riana Betzler
Course Description
We all want to live "the good life." But what does this mean? And how do we get there, both in the short term (here at SJSU) and in the long term? Are money, fame, and success the keys to the good life? What about family, community, service, education, and spirituality? How will you know when you have “made it”?
This course offers a space for thinking about the most central of questions: What is the good life? And how do we get it? In this class, we’ll examine these questions by engaging with philosophical materials (texts and audiovisual materials) but also by going out into our world and engaging with our communities.
We’ll start by finding our footing and a sense of home here at SJSU. We’ll learn how to navigate college and we’ll think about how our educational pursuits fit in with our wider values. Then, we’ll begin to think more broadly about how to build a career, life, and world that expresses our values and has meaning. Along the way, we’ll see how philosophical texts and the many events, performances, and lectures at SJSU – as well as conversations with our wider communities and acts of service within them – can continually inform our ideas about the good life.
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