Academic Support and Advising

Purpose/Philosophy of Course

First-Year Seminar courses have been proven to help students make a successful transition from high school to colleges and universities along a number of factors, including higher grades, higher graduation rates, higher satisfaction with their college experience, feeling more connected to faculty, new friends, and the campus as a whole, and more involvement on campus. Due to these outcomes, we at UNC believe that students should have widespread opportunity to experience this success, and we offer this course to all incoming first-year students.

UNC FYE 108 is a class that encourages discussion and engagement through active learning. Students will learn and practice skills that they can use in their other classes, while being in a safe space in which to try these new skills out. This doesn’t mean that the course is easy…but it means that wrong answers are okay if you learn something from the situation. Instructors in UNC's FYE 108 tend to be more “hands-on” with students, making sure they are staying on track with their coursework. This philosophy is based upon the thought that students can’t be expected to completely change their environment and be perfect students; they need to learn about how to be more effective in navigating their new environment. That is why time is spent talking about what UNC expects of students, how to manage the heavier workload in college, how to interact with professionals on campus, and how to manage ones time now that more time is spent outside of class than inside the classroom.

Finally, UNC FYE 108 is a course designed to connect students with their majors and with happenings on campus. That is why we work closely with different schools and School Directors to develop a curriculum that meets students’ major and graduation requirements.