First Year Experience

For more information contact:

Rebecca Hooker
rhooker@vwu.edu 
757-233-8790
Faculty Suite 101, Village II

The first year of college brings exciting challenges and terrific opportunities for self-transformation. Virginia Wesleyan has a special course  to help first-year students make the transition to a successful and fulfilling first year.

As a new student at Virginia Wesleyan University, you will have the benefit of enrolling in a one credit First Year Experience (FYE 101) course, taught by your first year academic advisor, that is designed to help students engage and succeed both academically and socially in Virginia Wesleyan's liberal arts learning community. You will engage in an array of activities and exercises that invite you to explore the nature of liberal arts learning, connect to the campus community, and develop the personal resourcefulness that leads to college success.  The course, FYE 101, begins with Scene II freshmen orientation two and a half days prior to the week that classes begin. The remaining ten hours of the course will take place during the fall semester.

FYE students will:

  • Explore the nature of liberal arts learning by examining how different disciplinary perspectives on the summer book raise different kinds of questions, how those different questions reflect different frames of reference as reflected in VWU's general studies requirements. Students at VWU will also learn that in addition to an in-depth facility in a major field of interest, a liberal arts education emphasizes the pursuit of broad knowledge and intellectual and imaginative capacities that enable students to approach any challenging issue with analytical precision, creative vision, and ethical and civic responsibility.
  • Learn how to connect to the greater VWU community by reflecting on the traditions and expectations of the Virginia Wesleyan community—on its Honor Code and Creed, on conduct expectations in and outside the classroom, and on what it means to become an active member of the community. In addition to classroom activities, students will attend selected co-curricular and extracurricular events, with the goals of connecting to the community and understanding the integrated nature of the college experience.
  • Learn how to develop habits that lead to college success  that will include learning techniques for attentive listening, active reading, effective note-taking, and good time management. Students will receive guidance and support for preparing successfully for their classes and for developing good habits that lead to success in college, and will be expected to demonstrate increasing resourcefulness, through active engagement in class, through independent attendance at co-curricular events, and through the timely completion of course assignments.

FYE 101 Enrollment Guidelines:

  • All freshmen--and all transfer students with fewer than 12 semester hours--must complete the one-credit course, FYE 101 First Year Experience. (A transfer student is a student who has graduated from high school and then attended college. Students who have completed dual enrollment courses in high school are considered first-time freshmen, not transfer students, and must complete FYE 101.) 
  • Students who do not pass the  FYE 101 requirement  have the option to repeat FYE 101 the following spring semester.

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