The First-Year Experience (FYE) is a comprehensive approach to ensure first-year students make a successful transition to college. Through participation in the First-Year Experience, CU Denver has the following primary goals for students.
Become actively engaged with the CU Denver Downtown Campus community
Develop relationships with peers, faculty, and staff members
Demonstrate high levels of academic performance
Develop appropriate study and time management skills
First-Year Seminars
CU Denver offers an optional program of First-Year Seminars (FYS) designed to assist first-year students to successfully make the transition from high school to college, improve student retention, and boost new student confidence. The FYS courses integrate rigorous academic content with academic skills such as library usage, campus resources, information literacy, time management, communication skills, and career counseling.
Class size is capped at 24 students to encourage interaction between student and instructor, and to allow the instructor to serve as a mentor in the student’s first semester of college. Students are restricted to one FYS course. All of the FYS courses are 3 credit hours and count in the required Core Curriculum. Course content varies, but students should expect weekly writing and reading assignments. FYS students are also engaged outside the classroom, service learning activities, campus engagements, and skills workshops.
2012 FYS Course Brochure
CU Denver Core Status for First-Year Seminar Courses
Beginning with the Fall 2009 semester, the CU Denver Core Curriculum Oversight Committee (CCOC) approved using one First-Year Seminar (FYS) course towards Core Curriculum requirements. The FYS courses are individually reviewed by the CCOC for the knowledge area content, critical thinking and writing requirements of the Core. FYS course may only be applied toward a specific Knowledge Area of the Core, which excludes using a FYS course towards writing/mathematics proficiency in Intellectual Competencies, International Perspectives, or Cultural Diversity areas of the Core. The following table outlines the FYS courses by department/program, title, and instructor for official Core Status.
FYS Engagement Activity Information
Details and information on fall 2013 FYS workshops will be available in late summer 2013. A list of workshops from fall 2012 is available below for reference.
FYS Workshop List - Fall 2012
The fall 2012 workshop, activity, and advising participation and evaluation forms are also available in PDF versions below.
FYS Workshop Evaluation Form
FYS Activity Evaluation Form
FYS Advising Evaluation Form