How does it work?

It's as simple—or complex—as choosing one of approximately 45 Scribner Seminars.

The First-Year Experience begins in the summer prior to your first year, when you’ll choose one of approximately 45 Scribner Seminar offerings, each with no more than 16 students. But what makes the choice complex isn’t the process; it’s the problem you’ll have in choosing among so many compelling topics, as well as how you approach the choice. Do you choose what you’re best at? What you think you’ll major in? Or something totally new and different—even risky? That’s your call.

Held every fall semester for three hours per week, the Seminars join faculty and students in a critical examination of provocative issues based on the specific Seminar topic. A fourth hour is reserved for mentoring and cocurricular activities. The results may well be transformational; these courses encourage students to think about the liberal arts as a whole, challenge preconceived notions of inquiry and knowledge, and examine issues from multiple perspectives. In essence, the Scribner Seminar is the means by which you’ll become an engaged, interdisciplinary thinker.