First Year Seminars Program
The School of Arts and Sciences is excited to announce that starting Fall 2025, First-Year Seminars will be introduced as the centerpiece of our First Year Experience, a sequence of programs that welcome students into the university's rich intellectual life.
The First-Year Seminars aim to bring new students together with faculty in small groups to explore a variety of exciting topics and will play a crucial role in shaping our students' educational experiences and fostering their intellectual growth. First-year seminars provide numerous advantages for both students and faculty, such as fostering community to boost student retention, showcasing faculty expertise, and introducing students to our academic disciplines and programs.
The program will offer a range of topic-driven seminars that encourage students to construct well-reasoned arguments, support them with observations and evidence, and express their ideas clearly and persuasively. We invite faculty to propose innovative topics that inspire curiosity and engagement among first-year students. Whether it’s a unique area of research, a pressing societal issue, or an interdisciplinary exploration, faculty ideas can make a significant impact.
Reading and writing will be integral components of the seminars. Each seminar will feature a selection of readings that align with its themes, stimulating discussion, deepening understanding, and serving as a foundation for students' writing assignments. Students will also engage with writing as a crucial aspect of both academic and professional life, recognizing its role in fostering critical thinking and active citizenship.
Additionally, students will learn to identify the conventions of disciplinary writing, enabling them to apply these skills across their major courses and throughout the broader Brandeis curriculum.
The seminars will meet the Brandeis Core first-year writing requirement, which aims to improve students’ written communication skills during their careers at Brandeis.
More information will be shared in the coming weeks.