FYSE 1101 is a seminar course focusing on contemporary and enduring questions that engage students in intellectual inquiry and academic life while encouraging critical thinking skills and metacognitive reflection.

FYSE 1101 Learning Outcomes

After completion of FYSE 1101, students will be able to:

  • Describe one or more contemporary and enduring questions about their lives and their relationships to human cultures or the physical and natural world.
  • Analyze and reflect on the intellectual and practical skills of the course's theme or topic.
  • Summarize the benefits and challenges of a diverse society.
  • Identify and evaluate linkages among academic disciplines.

First-Year Seminar Experience: The Successful College Student
Congratulations, you are a college student. What happens now? This course will help you answer that question. In this course, students [you] will learn how to pose problems, discover solutions, resolve controversies, evaluate knowledge, and improve communication skills through the exploration of issues related to success in college (HigherEd). We will explore the current and historical value of a college experience. Examining the structure and context of higher education and Ï㽶ÊÓƵ¹ÙÍø, you will articulate your reasons for attending college and explain how this experience will impact your future life. The course will help you identify previous, current, and potential future challenges to success and develop a plan for overcoming them. You will construct a personalized understanding of the value of college and a personal philosophy for navigating the experience.

Fall 2021 FYSE1101 Courses

CRN: 84486, section A
Class Meetings: TR 2-3:15pm
Instructor: Young, Brett

Course Description:

Through the lens of popular young adult literature, this course will ask you to do two major things: ask a question based on the literature we’ve read, and create and present an answer. To construct these questions and answers we will be reading: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon, and All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. These books ask their readers to question how we talk about complicated issues and what we should actively do towards them to change the world. These books discuss: mental health, immigration, racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and more. Through these topics we will learn as a class how to develop the skills that create great college learners: developing strong questions, analyzing and reflecting when attempting to answer, learning to seek out the answers others have made, and to formulate your own answer based on what you have learned through the process. At the end of semester, you will be asked to create a three-minute video of your question that demonstrates your research and the answer you have conclude, which will be submitted to the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

CRN: 84669, section F
Class Meetings: TR, 3:30-4:45pm
Instructor: Trowell, Sandra

Course Description:

In this seminar, we will explore how mathematics and social justice impact our world. Mathematics influences our life decisions perhaps more than perhaps other subjects. Mathematics is not a neutral subject but a lens from which we view our world and address questions. What do the statistics, graphs, and charts mean? During this course, there will be opportunities to address topics that focus upon mathematics and social justice: minimum wage, prisons, poverty, immigration, as well as other topics significant to the class. The class will include readings, writing assignments, and a project/presentation.

CRN: 84636, section IA & 84637, section IB
Class Meetings: Online
Instructor: Tori, Cynthia

Course Description:

This course aims to increase financial literacy among college students and introduce the students to the influences culture and demographic characteristics have on financial risk tolerance. We make decisions that impact our current and future financial health all the time. As consumers we may apply for loans of various type such as car loans, mortgages, personal loans, etc. We may also use loans to invest into a business or to invest in our own productivity (student loan). As workers our decisions on how we spend our income, how much of it we save and invest will influence whether we will have adequate income if we face an unplanned event such as a medical emergency or if we face a planned event such as retirement. Financial literacy, culture and demographic characteristics impact these decisions.

This course will

  • Enhance student-faculty interaction in a small class setting
  • Open channels of communication between students and faculty
  • Promote intentional and reflective learning
  • Document academic dialogue through writing
  • Expose students to opportunities to engage in research, public service, campus events, and varied forms of instruction both on campus and globally (e.g. study abroad, internships, service learning)

CRN: 84654, section B
Class Meetings: MW, 2:00-3:15pm
Instructor: Mackh, Bruce

Course Description:

This course provides students with competencies and skills for lifelong success as they learn to find and generate solutions to “wicked problems."