First-Year Seminars
"FYS"-marked courses, or "First-Year Seminars," are part of a University initiative to ensure close interaction between first-year students and faculty members while simultaneously offering a rigorous introduction to the approaches and analytical methods for a particular subject area or department. With enrollment capped at twenty, first-year seminars are an ideal way for students to get to know one of their professors well. The seminars' small size and therefore congenial setting encourage participation in lively discussion and provide students with regular feedback from their instructor on the work they produce for the class.
First-year seminars exemplify the kind of active, collaborative learning and open intellectual inquiry that have always made Brown such a special place. Each seminar is fully a part of the sponsoring academic department's own curriculum, reflecting its teaching and research goals for undergraduates. The seminars help students develop a variety of academic skills, such as how to listen carefully and how to develop their capacity for oral and written argument, the kinds of skills necessary to weighing evidence, respecting opposing views, and negotiating differences.
