First-Year Seminar

Department website: http://firstyear.barnard.edu

Office location: 417 Barnard Hall
Office phone: 212-854-2116

Department Manager: Julissa Acosta, jacosta@barnard.edu

Department Assistant: Gabriel Garcia, ggarcia@barnard.edu

Mission

Every Barnard first-year student is required to take a First-Year Seminar during her first or second semester at Barnard. First-Year Seminars are designed to develop further the essential and prerequisite skills a student brings to Barnard in critical reading and analysis, writing, and effective speaking. First-Year Seminars are intellectually challenging interdisciplinary courses which explore important issues through significant texts ranging across genres and historical periods. Seminars also serve to initiate students into the intellectual community of the college.

The First-Year Seminars

First-Year Seminars fall into two categories: Special Topics and Reacting to the Past. 

Special Topics seminars reflect the variety of faculty interests and expertise, and thus vary in topic from year to year. They offer students and faculty opportunities to explore topics of interest across disciplinary lines, genres, and historical periods. Use the "Courses" tab above to view the full Special Topics offerings; current semester offerings are indicated with schedule details.

In Reacting to the Past seminars, students participate in role-playing games that enable them to relive important intellectual debates in three separate historical moments.

In The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C., studentsdraw on Plato’s Republic as well as excerpts from Thucydides, Xenophon, and other contemporary sources to debate the prospects for Athenian democracy in the wake of the Peloponnesian War.

In Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor , students study the Analects of Confucius and apply Confucian thought to issues of governance during the Ming dynasty. The final semester’s final game varies by section. Some sections explore seventeenth-century Massachusetts, drawing on the Bible, Calvin's Institutes, and colonial trial testimony to participate in The Trial of Anne Hutchinson. Other sections draw on texts by Marx, Freud, and Wollstonecraft to explore the contest between women's suffrage advocates and labor activists for the hearts and minds of "Bohemian" Greenwich Village in the spring of 1913.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Students in First-Year Seminars will develop their skills in critical reading and analysis, writing, and effective speaking.
2. They will assess and use textual evidence in support of oral and written arguments.
3. Students will explore important issues through significant texts ranging across genres, disciplines, and historical periods.

Courses of Instruction

Every Barnard first-year student is required to take a First-Year Seminar during their first or second semester at Barnard. Transfer students are not required to take First-Year Seminars.

Course List

Code	Title	Points
FYSB BC1001	FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR AT BARNARD

First-Year Seminars initiate students into the academic life of the College by offering intellectually engaging experiences in which students and faculty from a wide range of home departments work through challenging material, often across disciplinary lines. Each one-semester seminar is designed to develop essential skills for college work, such as the ability to read critically and analytically, to speak clearly and effectively, and to write logically and persuasively. First-Year Seminars vary in content and format, and fall into two categories: Special Topics and Reacting to the Past. Descriptions are available in Vergil.

Course List

Code	Title	Points
FYSB BC1002	FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR WORKSHOP

First-Year Seminars initiate students into the academic life of the College by offering intellectually engaging experiences in which students and faculty from a wide range of home departments work through challenging material, often across disciplinary lines. Each one-semester seminar is designed to develop essential skills for college work, such as the ability to read critically and analytically, to speak clearly and effectively, and to write logically and persuasively. First-Year Seminar Workshops — 4-credit versions of First-Year Seminars—are specially designed for students who believe they would benefit from extra support with their critical reading and academic writing skills. In addition to regular seminar meetings twice per week, students are also required to participate in six Friday “writing labs” over the course of the semester. First-Year Seminar Workshops vary in content. Descriptions can be found in Vergil.