First Year Seminars

One of the most important and engaging courses you will take at Stetson University will be your First Year Seminar. You will find descriptions of these classes and of the professors who teach them on the Fall 2023 First Year Seminars page.

During your First Year Seminar, you will work closely with Stetson instructors to explore a single topic. You and your classmates will learn how to join an intellectual conversation at a significantly higher level than you have been accustomed to in high school. As a First Year Seminar student, you will join an academic community of thinkers, learners, and researchers who are committed to maintaining the rigors and rewards of a liberal arts education. Through active participation in the First Year Seminar Program, you will learn what it takes to be successful in college. The purpose of the First Year Seminar is to help you understand the human condition and, as a result, to make it better.

First Year Seminars have the following goals:

  • to provide courses exclusively for first-year students
  • to improve writing skills by focusing on writing in a range of genres within a particular field of study and in ways that emphasize clarity, coherence, intellectual force and stylistic control
  • to introduce students to the excitement of studying and interpreting primary sources
  • to enhance students' abilities to read and think critically
  • to instill, through practice, the ability to express themselves cogently
  • to enhance students' ability to communicate their ideas in professional oral presentations

With the following learning objectives:

  • Write effectively for multiple audiences and for multiple purposes
  • Engage with information effectively and for a variety of purposes.
  • Speak in an understandable, organized, and audience-appropriate fashion to explain ideas, express feelings, or support a conclusion
  • Analyze, evaluate, and synthesize data to reach a conclusion or develop a position

Most first-year students, with the exception of those in Music Education, will take a First Year Seminar. Other students in the School of Music and all students in the College of Arts and Sciences - except Honors Program students - will select from any of the FSEM 100 courses listed.

Follow the link below to the First Year Seminar checklist, read about the courses and professors and select your top choices.

Continue to Fall 2023 First Year Seminars