USC students teach college-style ‘mini-courses’ to high schoolers

When Mazen Loan needed a break from his studies at USC, he often headed to Literatea, a campus café near Doheny Memorial Library, to sip coffee, clear his head and chat with the baristas. Over time, the chats led to friendship, and Loan listened as the café staff told him about their lives and families, their children and grandchildren. Hearing their stories inspired Mazen to give back in some way to the campus workers, who are an important, if often overlooked, force in keeping the school running.

Shaukat Initiative courses cover such subjects as medical ethics, hip-hop and folklore. (Photo: Tianyu Wang.)

“Being part of USC and part of the student body, the service staff play such a big role in making our campus a wonderful place. I wondered what it is I could do to make a difference in their lives,” says Loan, who graduated from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

He thought back to his grandfather, a Pakistani businessman who had built a school in Lahore for the children of his employees. Loan adapted his grandfather’s idea and, in his senior year at USC Dornsife, created the Shaukat Initiative, a student-run group that allows select university students to teach college-style courses on various topics to the children of USC staff as well as area high school students. The course topics vary — there have been classes on everything from archaeology and ecology to hip-hop and food — but all of them feature elements of ethics and philosophy.

“For the student instructors, the program offers an opportunity to design and pitch courses on topics that excite them from their own coursework,” says Lucas Herchenroeder, associate professor (teaching) of classics at USC Dornsife and one of the initiative’s faculty advisors. “The young students in the program are introduced to creative ways of thinking about subjects that interest them, and gain opportunities to cultivate tools of inquiry and a scholarly voice in an intimate classroom setting of 10 students or fewer.”

Because the program was created under the former Levan Institute for the Humanities, the classes were all required to have an ethics or cultural component. The Shaukat Initiative has since become a fully student-run organization, but that focus on ethics has remained. Loan adds that exposing younger students to questions of philosophy and encouraging a broader view of knowledge is important.

“I personally feel that ethics is the most important set of belief human beings will have in their lives because it shapes the way you deal with others around you and how you conduct yourself,” he says.

Developing student teaching

The Shaukat Initiative offered 12 courses in fall 2020, including “Sky’s the Limit: Uncovering the Complexities of the Hip-Hop Genre,” which looked at the political and social messages within the songs of Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar; “Forms of Folklore,” which traced how folk tales have evolved over time; and “The Science Behind Peak Performance,” which examined the different mental and physical traits of people who have had exceptional success in athletics, entrepreneurship and other areas.

“Right now, our two most popular classes are one on medical forensics, which goes over case studies and learning the science behind solving these mysteries, and one on conspiracy theories,” says Shaukat co-director Megan Lacsamana, a senior majoring in human biology at USC Dornsife.

Lacsamana says that what makes Shaukat unique is that rather than simply tutoring students in courses they’re already taking in high school, USC students are allowed to develop and teach their own courses based on their own areas of interest.

Shaukat Initiative co-director Tianyu Wang. (Photo: Courtesy of Tianyu Wang.)

Lacsamana and her two co-directors, Tianyu Wang and Lauren Yen, designed the program from the top-down, building on Mazen’s initial idea after he graduated, according to Wang, a senior majoring in psychology at USC Dornsife and business administration at the USC Marshall School of Business.

The co-directors, with the help of a student executive board, recruit student instructors as well as interested high schoolers, design teacher training materials, check on classes throughout the semester and provide support for instructors. Faculty advisors approve the courses and course materials.

Initially the program was only offered to the children of USC staff members, but in the third semester cycle, the program opened to students at USC Hybrid High and USC Esperanza College Prep.

Wang, Yen and Lacsmana have all taught courses through the program. Yen, a fourth-year student majoring in biological sciences and pursuing a progressive master’s degree in global medicine through Keck School of Medicine of USC, says that the ethics component to her class gave her a fresh look at her field of study.

“For me, as a scientist, I liked being able to explore that intersection of ethics and science,” she says. “Shaukat gets you to really view society not in the textbook manner, but more in a way that sheds light on humanity, our part in society and the consequences of our actions.”

Lacsmana agrees that the ethical dimension has made the courses more interesting. In a medical ethics course she co-taught with Yen, they looked at a case in China involving several scientists who had edited the genome in human embryos.

“Our students were very polarized on that issue; they debated it. We had the students switch sides, so then they would have to do their own research and think from the perspective of a side they didn’t necessarily agree with,” Lacsmana says.

Wang notes that such discussions and debates are central to the courses, which are kept small so that students can interact more closely. She notes that she has received good feedback from enrollees on the quality of teaching and discussion they experience in the classroom.

Wang says the program also has made her realize how special it can be to be able to access education easily.

“Being at a university, there’s professors everywhere. You can talk to them whenever you want,” she says. “But seeing our students, just their passion for knowledge and learning things, it’s really taught me a lot about cherishing the access to education, and how important it is to recognize that we have been so fortunate to be blessed with all these opportunities.”