First-Year Seminar: Courses

The First Year Seminar (FYS) is more than a conventional class. The program is designed to help new students with several facets of their larger transition to campus life. Small FYS class sizes encourage active learning and interaction between all students and the professor.

FYS conversations build community. Each year, a group of Saint Michael’s faculty select a First Year Seminar Common Text: a shared book to inspire thoughtful discussions on campus. The first intellectual dialogue uniting a new student cohort is based on their shared text. We approach a compelling topic from many perspectives. Related events and discussions take place throughout the academic year.

Simultaneously, the Seminars create an academic foundation students can build, as they learn to express themselves about increasingly complex issues. As each Seminar section moves forward into its focused topic, courses promote reflection on cultural diversity and explore their topic from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives.

Students continue their transition into college by practicing interrelated skills of close reading, engaged discussion, critical writing, and – above all – thinking in new ways. These focal points help students to navigate new college-level communications challenges, thrive in a liberal arts structure, and improve important skills sought by employers after college.

First-Year Seminars for Spring 2026:

Music and the Human Experience
Climate Crisis: Visions of Sustainability and Justice
Envisioning Environments: School & the Natural World

First-Year Seminars for Fall 2026:

The Afterlife (HONORS)
Shapeshifting through Words
The Examined Life
Questions of Justice
How the Arts Transform Us
Native Voices Across Media
Journey Stories
Comedy, Discomfort, and Dissent
Resistance and Empowerment
Place and Placelessness
Black Voices of Democracy
Technology and Ethics in Society
Climate Crisis

For the list of First-Year Seminar course descriptions, click here.

The Common Text

Each year, Saint Michael’s College chooses a common text to be read and discussed by the incoming class of new students. All first-year students are asked to read the book over the summer prior to arriving on campus. A panel discussion of the book is held during Orientation in late August, and each First-Year Seminar discusses the book at the start of the fall and spring semesters.

We are very pleased to host a guest lecture in September by a co-author of our Common Text. TIME Magazine recently named co-authors Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor among the key “Thinkers” on a list of 100 Most Influential People in AI. You can hear the latest from Dr. Narayanan this September at Saint Michael’s and participate in a Q&A session.