First Year Seminar

All incoming Franklin students, including transfer students with fewer than 30 credits participate in a First Year Seminar (FYS). Students transferring to Franklin University with 30 or more college or university credits may substitute elective credit for the First Year Seminar.

First Year Seminars are discipline-specific courses designated with the 199 numbering. Themes vary from year to year depending on the participating professors’ areas of interest, disciplines, and fields of knowledge. The broad aim of FYS is to help students adapt to academic expectations and the university experience. This seminar is an integral part of a larger First Year Experience that integrates academics with orientation, advising, academic support, co-curricular activities and community activities. All FYS are designed to engage students both in and out of the classroom by forging learning communities through a small class size and an upper class academic mentor who acts as a bridge between incoming students and professors, and who helps students feel comfortable with new sets of expectations. The common thread that runs through each seminar is the student’s own experience of engaging with Franklin’s unique culture and the larger Swiss community. In that spirit, FYS introduces students not only to a particular topic and the fundamental analytical skills needed to produce university-level work, but also to the everyday tools necessary for grappling with real-life multiculturalism and the processes of cross-cultural encounter.

Examples of First Year Seminar topics include:

Glaciers No More: Climate Change and the Alps
Navigating the Imagination: Drawing and the Creative Process
Key Ideas in Global Politics
Ethics and the Environment
The Pursuit of Happiness
Perfect and Imperfect Worlds: Visions of Dystopia and Utopia in Fiction and Film