This course introduces students to the history, spaces,conditions, and assumptions that shape our experience ofan important cultural institution: higher education. We aska lot of questions: What is college for? What is the UWcampus for? How do the spaces of college "teach" usand talk to us about what college is supposed to be? Whatmakes a college education "accessible" or "inaccessible"?How do students and their college define and shape eachother? What are the "official" expectations of college aswell as the "unofficial" expectations and experiencesstudents create? Our answers are informed by understandingthe contexts in which a UW education is meaningful. Byasking and shaping answers to questions like these abouteducation in general and UW in particular, AMST 1101actively engages the places and meanings of education as anobject of study, and introduces students tointerdisciplinary ways of asking questions about any objectof study.