“I’ll celebrate after I ____.”

Popular belief holds that if we fill that blank with our personal or career goal and aim for success in achieving it, happiness will follow. Once we succeed, however, we form new goals and happiness gets pushed farther and farther into the future. Inspired by recent groundbreaking research in the field of positive psychology, Harvard alumnus and professor Shawn Achor posits a theory that happiness fuels success, not the other way around. He has performed numerous experiments to gather evidence to support his belief and compiled his findings in a book called The Happiness Advantage.

The objective of this course is to socialize strategies that are proven to improve one’s outlook (and happiness), have you try them for a period of 21 consecutive days, and then measure the tangible as well as intangible (perceived) benefits to test Achor’s hypothesis. Working under the umbrella of happiness, we will delve deeper into the practices of mindfulness (meditation), gratitude, and kindness. We will explore these themes through guest speakers, literature on the topics, in-class discussions, and four hands-on projects that challenge you to apply these practices to your daily lives. The hope is that with continuous practice over the course of 21 days, these practices will develop into habits that manifest more naturally and regularly.

Sign-ups will be through CalCentral with the CCN (will post below once available). Open to all students on a first come, first serve basis. The first day of class is the week of Monday, August 28th. Please fill out this form if you would like to be notified by email when course enrollment opens: https://goo.gl/forms/mVOMophV7V5a24PJ2. Update 8/23/2017: All four sections and wait lists are completely full. We hope you can take this course during a future semester!