Freshman Seminar
Fall 2006
Course Description:
Most freshmen will be randomly assigned to a one-credit seminar, which meets once a week during the fall semester (others will be part of a 4 credit Freshman Seminar Program). This seminar is designed to assist the students in making a successful transition to the academic, personal and social challenges of college life. The seminar has two parts. In alternate weeks, the group will meet with a faculty leader, and focus on content designed to help students prepare for the academic expectations they will encounter at the college level. During the remaining sessions, content will be divided between laptop training and participation in programs that enhance students’ successful integration into college life. Two student leaders are assigned to each seminar group; they will contribute their personal insights on the Wesleyan student experience. Students may not withdraw from or change sections of Freshman Seminar.
Objectives:
- To encourage students to explore the purposes of attending college and to help them articulate goals for the next four years and beyond.
- To introduce students to values and expectations of an academic community.
- To engage students in discussions and assignments that model good practices of intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, and communication.
- To provide interim academic advising.
- To begin the process of integrating technology with learning.
- To provide opportunities to anticipate the demands and rewards of residential college life and to provide strategies for managing its stresses.
- To enhance students’ basic knowledge of the procedures, services, and resources of WVWC and, as necessary, to connect students with special needs and interests to the appropriate resources.
Course requirements:
- A minimum of two (2) 500-word essays; one of which is a reflective paper, which requires the students to assess “Where Am I Today? Where Do I Hope to Be in the Future? How Do I Plan to Get There?”; the topic for the second will be set by the Seminar Leader.
- Attendance is required at all sessions.
- Active participation in all seminar activities. Students are expected to prepare any reading or written assignments for each session of the seminar. Students are expected to engage in active learning: discussion groups, large and small; in-class writing; using self-assessment tools, and asking questions, and other strategies for active learning.
- Seminar leaders may assign additional readings, written assignments, quizzes, and research tasks.
Required Book:
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried |
