First Year Seminars (FYS 100)
In April 1995, the College faculty approved the First Year Seminar (FYS) Program, recommending that each seminar include “intense intellectual interchange, both written and oral, in a seminar setting in which all participate …in critical thinking and analysis of arguments. [Seminars] should include discussion and debate on issues, examination of opposing viewpoints …and written and oral assignments that force students to make explicit their ideas and thoughts…”
First Year Seminars, which enroll 15-19 students per section, are taught by faculty from all academic divisions and ranks. Every First Year Seminar is topical and constructed by the individual faculty member with the guidance stated above. A standing faculty committee receives and approves each FYS proposal. Content is approved, in advance, by the appropriate department chair or dean.
Every first year student must enroll in, and pass, a FYS during the first year of enrollment at Wake Forest.
First Year Seminar Archives
Get the lists of previous first year seminars here
- FYS Fall 2010 – Spring 2011
- FYS Fall 2009 – Spring 2010
- FYS Fall 2008 – Spring 2009
- FYS Fall 2007 - Spring 2008
- FYS Fall 2006 - Spring 2007