L&S Discovery Courses

Professor uses performances to hook students on astronomy
UC Berkeley astronomy professor Alex Filippenko answers questions after his Halloween day Intro to General Astronomy L&S Discovery Course at Wheeler Hall. Every Halloween, Filippenko, named professor of the year in 2006 by a national educational foundation, dresses as a black hole to teach his lesson on black holes. Mike Kepka / The Chronicle Photo taken on 10/31/07, in Berkeley, CA, USA (Mike Kepka)

The L&S seven-course breadth requirement gives students the opportunity to explore fascinating worlds of knowledge. Letters & Science Discovery Courses are courses ideally suited to fulfill the L&S breadth requirement in engaging ways. These courses are taught by some of the best teachers among the Berkeley faculty. Deliberately designed to engage and ignite the minds of non-experts, L&S Discovery Courses are destined to be unforgettable.

I love the L&S Discovery Courses—this is my third! I feel it contributed greatly to my understanding of the world and to my education.

— L&S Discovery Course Student

The L&S Discovery Course program is administered by the College of Letters & Science’s Division of Undergraduate Studies and serves students in all colleges and schools across the UC Berkeley campus. The program is generously supported in part by donors to the L&S Leadership Fund.