Castleton First-Year Seminar

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Information on FYS Courses

MyStudentBody.com program for first-year students

Summer Reading Assignment

Cover of book The Road from Prosperity

FYS: Joining the Castleton Community

Castleton requires all new students, with fewer than twelve previously earned college credits, to enroll in a First-Year Seminar (FYS). First-Year Seminar instructors also serve as a student’s primary advisor during the first year at Castleton. All students in the FYS, participate in Common Hour, a weekly meeting taking place at noon on Wednesdays. Here, FYS learn about campus resources or address issues that affect all in the community. Thus, an FYS course meets four hours each week.

Some seminars are linked to a second (or third) companion course, forming a cohort. Students signing up for these seminars will automatically enroll in more than one course: the FYS and its cohort(s) or partner(s). Linking courses is a way to explore a theme across academic disciplines and examine a topic from different perspectives.

These seminars are specially designed courses that emphasize the development of academic skills and the integration of the student into the college community. In conjunction with Common Hour and Soundings, First-Year Seminars will assist new students with the transition to college life by providing opportunities for academic, social, and personal development.

All First Year Seminar students participate in a recycling project as part of the first year experience. Castleton is committed to the concept of civic engagement, and to the practice of developing students into “productive citizens.” In the broader sense, American democracy is part of a tradition of everyday politics where citizens share in the productive, ongoing public work of building a community and solving common problems. In the first semester, as a member of a new community, that of Castleton State College, the college asks students to help solve an environmental problem affecting all of us through participation in the recycling part of our Green Campus Initiative.

If there are any questions that cannot wait until Summer Registration, please feel free to call the office of the Associate Academic Dean at 802-468-1244.