Getting Connected

The small seminars (18-22 students) enroll only students in their first-year at K-State, including first-year students coming from highschools, as well as incoming transfer students from other universities and community colleges.

With their small size and community-focus, the First- Year Seminars (FYS) invite and encourage an active learning environment. The seminars devote significant portions of class time to hands-on learning, group discussions, problem solving, inquiry-based learning, and activities that provide you with opportunities to develop your critical thinking and communication skills. They also provide you with the opportunity to engage in at least three co-curricular activities. These classes are academic spaces that encourage you to collaborate, interact, and develop relationships with your peers and professors.

Discipline Specific

Maybe you need to take an Intro to Sociology course for your major, but the large lecture seems a bit daunting. Then our First-Year Seminar section might be the right fit for you! Each seminar is a special FYS of a regular, academic, general education class. Although the academic content varies among the seminars, each seminar focuses on a distinctive, college-level academic subject. The most important goal of these seminars is to provide fundamental support to K-State's academic mission and its focus on student learning. We have over 40 different discipline-specific FYS courses in every College.

Student Success Courses

In addition to helping students make the transition to university courses and college-level learning, First-Year Seminar Foundations of College Student Success courses emphasize college student success skills such as time management, study skills, critical thinking strategies, and more. As a place to ask questions about the University and practice the skills needed to succeed as a first-year student, these courses provide support for the transition into college life and the K-State community.

The FYS Program has strong, skilled, and dedicated cohort of teaching faculty and staff. These faculty/staff members are part of a team of instructors who are coordinated at the university-level and work with each other to plan, design, teach, and assess the FYS Program. These instructors, drawn from all over campus, are pedagogically excellent, experienced, and interested in undergraduate education at K-State. They are among the best instructors at the university.