Elaina Eakle
Ehe001@marietta.edu
The First-Year Experience (FYE) program at Marietta College has seen several changes this year, including a restructuring of its curricular component.
According to Dr. Nicole Livengood, the director of First Year Seminar (FYS) and the Peer Mentor program, the FYE program includes all experiences freshmen students have in their first year of college, including first contact with admissions, summer orientation days, and welcome week.
The curricular component of the FYE program is designated as FYS this year, and is more extensive than it has been in the past due to changes recommended as a result of the accreditation process.
“As part of accreditation, we needed to do a self-study on an area of what we do,” Livengood said. “Out of that came a number of recommendations and those recommendations included the restructuring of the program.”
Through the accreditation recommendations, called Foundations of Excellence, a philosophy was developed for the FYS program.
“It wanted to encourage engagement intellectually, with the community and in self-discovery, and so all of the programming we are doing, whether it’s welcome week, or a residence hall programming, the first year seminar is grounded in this philosophy,” Livengood said.
The goals for the FYS program also stem from this philosophy. One of these goals involves laying foundations for student learning and engagement in academics.
“So for instance, we want a Marietta college graduate to be able to make connections between what they’ve done in the classroom and outside of the classroom,” Livengood said.
A second goal of the program is to help freshmen navigate Marietta College and become involved on campus and in the community.
“If you think about it, we’re a campus of acronyms,” Livengood said. “You know, ‘go to the DBRC,’ ‘go to the Chlapaty,’ your FYS and your FYE, and your CA and your PM, so helping them to understand terms and understand places, and so part of the first year seminar is actually a lab component that introduces students to things like how to get involved on campus.”
This lab component adds an extra credit hour to the FYS courses.
“The fourth credit hour is the lab component and that meets 75 minutes a week, more or less, and it has 2 different functions,” Livengood said. “Depending on the week, students have what’s called convocation and that’s sort of a road map for Marietta College, so for example, they learned how to get involved on campus, and why that’s important.”
The lab component of the FYS classes also includes modules, or a series of mini-classes.
“Students identify an area they want to learn more about or a skill that they want to improve on and they’re given time to learn and apply those skills,” Livengood said. “So I think that’s got the most potential to really impact students because they need to do some reflection and figure out, ‘Okay, what’s working for me and what’s not?’ and make that choice, and then they have the opportunity to expand their horizons.”
Students are able to pick modules that interest them, and there are two rounds of modules this semester.
“The first round was more focused on either academic skills or non-cognitive skills that will help students persist and succeed,” Livengood said. “There was one called financial fitness, so it introduced students to particularly financial aid and how it works but also what are some wise ways to approach money.”
The second round of modules is intended to be more personally meaningful, and includes topics such as studying abroad.
The FYS courses themselves are also structured differently this year.
“One of the really exciting things about the FYS is that they’re theme based, and so essentially I think faculty were given pretty free reign to develop a course that they thought students would find interesting,” Livengood said.
Livengood also acknowledges that there is room for improvement in the FYS program and that freshman feedback will be incorporated into the FYS program for the second set of modules and will be used to refine the program next semester.
Freshman political science major Savannah Nickell was disappointed with her options in selecting an FYS course.
“I really don’t think my FYS class is very useful but I was forced to take it,” she said. “It is a personal finance class, which I’ve already taken in high school, and I didn’t have much options to pick from.”
Freshman Tristan Bailey, a petroleum engineering major, found some aspects of the modules helpful.
“I would have to say that the Financially Fit Module helped inform me about the importance of credit, which wasn’t stressed to me beforehand,” he said. “Throughout the class I learned about different budgeting methods, as well as different places around Marietta that could help me save money if I choose to spend my money.”
Senior Elizabeth White, peer mentor and student co-coordinator of the Peer Mentor Program, believes that the modules could be more effective if the structure was altered.
“I think the format is entirely ineffective,” she said. “You’re going to meet a lot of resistance because [the FYS students] don’t want to be in a classroom. I think there needs to be an element of reflection in there but not done in a classroom.”
Though Freshman Michael Johnson, a biochemistry major and Student Government Association Rep., also experienced some frustrations with the FYS program, he recognizes its potential to benefit freshman students.
“At first the class seemed to be useless, a waste of precious time I could be using to study for my other courses,” he said. “However, as the class went on, it became prevalent we were being taught how to succeed with a degree. I say ‘a degree’ because no matter what we major in, a degree from Marietta College will get us somewhere.”
Despite some of the challenges this year, Livengood believes the program is on the right track to continue to improve.
“I think all of the pieces are in place for making it even more successful,” she said.
