The First Year Initiatives (FYI) program began in 1990 as a new way to offer incoming students  a richly inspired introduction to inquiry, critical thinking, and collaboration in the liberal arts.

The FYI programs introduces new students to the College and to one another, beginning with New Student Days, held the week before the semester formally starts.  With only minor exceptions, first-year students have the campus to themselves during the first week of the program. This solidarity produces academic and social ownership. It builds confidence and trust, and a certain at-homeness, which is essential to future academic progress. The program links you from the day you arrive on campus to an experienced professor and to a group of peers. Over the next two years, this professor serves as your academic advisor, seminar leader, and mentor as you move towards declaring a major during your sophomore year. Your seminar leader/advisor also assists as you decide how you want to take advantage of your college activities-such as co-curricular activities, off-campus study, and internships across the nation.

Your FYI seminar begins during New Student Days and will be one of your four fall semester classes. From the very first day it meets, each seminar seeks to attack an issue, analyze it, discuss it, and then allow you to express your observations and conclusions about it. The goal is for faculty and students to talk about ideas openly, comfortably--and frequently. The seminar leaders are dedicated to fostering in the seminar participants the same "love of learning" that has led them to become teachers and scholars.

Spring Semester is focused much more on the relationship between you and your advisor than on the entire group. You will begin to think about your Academic Plan in order to maximize your opportunities and your time at Beloit College and to lay the foundation near the end of the term. Along with Venture Grants, all of this brings a sense of closure to the year-long program and also sets the stage for a successful sophomore year.

Venture Grants are competitive awards made to first-year students so that over the summer and as sophomores they may continue a project begun during their first year or initiate a new one. Seminar leaders and administrative staff facilitate the preparation of Venture Grant proposals.

Recent Venture Grants include a visit to Mexico to do a comparative study of the Mayan civilization and the Spanish Conquistadors, participation in archaeological digs near Nice, France, participation in the Glenwood Springs Dance Festival in Colorado, the filming of a sketch comedy show, and numerous projects allowing experiences that have allowed first-year students to "venture forth."

The Four Principles of the First-Year Initiatives Program:

Great Teaching:
Great teaching is not something a college should save only for juniors and seniors. From your first moments on campus you and other first-year students will study with outstanding Beloit College professors. Your FYI seminar will have approximately 15 students, and your seminar leader will also be your advisor for the next two years.

Varieties of Learning:
Learning is not something to be confined to a single field or discipline. Faculty and staff in fields of expertise ranging from anthropology to theatre lead the seminars. While each FYI seminar is different -- to give students a great deal of choice -- sections share common readings, common time slots, and common cultural and social events.

Before you graduate from Beloit, you will master at least one field, your major, in some depth. But in introducing you to learning at the College through the FYI Seminar we want to emphasize that knowledge has no boundaries. In your four years here, we want to stimulate your initiative to become broadly educated in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences.

Personalized Learning:
Learning is both something shared and something very personal and individualized. Your FYI Seminar will include a week of orientation in which you and 14 other members of your graduating class will get to know one another. During the orientation and fall semester seminar, you will undertake significant speaking and writing projects, both individually and within the close group that your FYI Seminar will become. FYI Seminars are designed to foster creativity, flexibility, and teamwork-skills best learned in small groups-as well as excellence in speaking and writing. In the words of one professor, Beloit's FYI program "begins preparing students to do well at Beloit, and do well after Beloit, on the first day you arrive."

Beyond Classroom Learning:
Learning is not just for the classroom. During orientation week, you and your FYI seminar group will get to know Beloit the City as well as Beloit the College. Noted anthropologist Margaret Mead once described Beloit as a "microcosm of America." With its heavy industry, urban challenges, and surrounding agricultural lands, with its ethnic diversity and long and fascinating history, Beloit is a stimulating window on the world. Previous FYI seminars have included working with the Landmarks Commission, tutoring children at a local community center, working on a community farm, and various individual hands-on projects.