Entering freshmen are in for a shock. College means a new study environment, new social environment, and an entirely new level of academic demands. Over the last decade, an increasing number of schools have sought ways to address this transition through special programs and courses. One successful approach is a special seminar for freshman. Freshman Seminars can help promote active learning, personal growth, and individual achievement.
Although they may differ in particulars, at most colleges, freshman seminars involve very small classes and personal mentoring by a faculty member. At Texas Christian University, where I am Academic Provost, the Freshman Seminar Program involves first-year students in a peer group tied to academic concerns and gives them the opportunity to develop a close relationship with a faculty member early in their university experience. With one professor and about fifteen students, each Freshman Seminar provides close personal contact with a faculty member – an active scholar, often a senior faculty member – in an interactive classroom. Offered during the fall semester to incoming students, the goal of each seminar is to help students develop a sense of belonging to the academic community and to foster the intellectual skills and self-confidence necessary for academic success.
Freshman Seminars are not simply lecture courses with smaller enrollments. Instead, each seminar encourages active learning, with each student an engaged, productive participant. While the form of preparation varies from semester to semester, indeed from class meeting to class meeting, activities include discussion of ideas, research on special projects, fieldwork, library investigation, and other ways for students to be involved in their own education. Seminar faculty members, all experts in their fields, guide the seminar class toward full involvement on individual projects. In addition, they provide opportunities to develop techniques of independent inquiry that can be applied throughout a student’s academic career.
Freshmen seminar programs help students adjust socially as well as academically, giving students an important support group as they go through their transition year. At TCU, faculty members generally organize activities outside the usual classroom setting. Such activities may include attending a play, concert, or film followed by a discussion or review, or possibly a purely social event such as a class dinner.
Assessments at TCU and other schools consistently demonstrate that freshmen seminar programs provide a beneficial and rewarding educational experience and accomplish good learning outcomes. The value of this learning experience, however, is not limited to one’s formal education. Both inside and outside the university, conditions are changing rapidly. Information quickly becomes obsolete, and a critical, inquiring mind is essential for dealing with these changes. Freshman Seminars, indeed, help students to develop creativity, self-expression, and independent thinking – abilities crucial to shaping the future.
