Students voiced their opinions about the new plan of action for increasing student success at last Wednesday’s Student Success forum. At the forum one question in particular addressed the initiative dealing with the First Year Inquiry program. This initiative attempts to increase the number of FYI courses so the enrollment in these courses will go from the current 10 percent of freshman to 100 percent in the future. Maxine Atkinson, professor and head of sociology and anthropology, addressed the question by saying the FYI and other academic support programs are the University’s attempt to “build a solid foundation” for incoming freshman to build upon in their following years. Atkinson went further to say that every course in the FYI program fulfills a GEP requirement. The span of the requirements these courses fulfill falls short of the major courses students typically need assistance in.
The current GEP requirements fall under eight different fields, which adds up to a total of 40 credit hours. Out of these eight fields, only half of them are covered by the FYI courses. Ten courses in the FYI program fall under the fields of humanities, social sciences, and additional breadth fields of the GEP requirements. The eleventh course of the FYI program is left to fall under the free elective category, not going toward GEP at all. These courses do not cover the most difficult of the GEP requirements–mathematical and natural sciences. According to the Undergraduate Tutorial Center’s Supplemental Instruction’s research, these course are typically the most challenging for students, not only academically, but also socially. The transition from a typical 20 to 30 student high school classroom to a 100 student college math class is not only intimidating, but difficult to fully engage in the class. This results in them getting frustrated with the subject and falling short academically in the class.
While the GEP requirements currently act as a minefield for students to navigate around while making their schedules towards graduation, these FYI courses are supposed to give freshmen the opportunity to complete a requirement in a less-intimidating environment. This is with the intent that the course aids in the transition from a high school classroom to a college one. This includes the mindset of a high school student to one of a college student. However the way the courses are currently set-up, their purpose becomes more about padding one’s GPA by merely continuing the high school classroom model with a more simplistic class, rather than aiding in the transition to the difficulty of higher education.
Before the Undergraduate Student Success Task Force and the FYI administration attempts to expand the FYI program, they should focus more on improving the one already in existence. Get rid of the classes like Introduction to Bee-keeping and replace it with a calculus class or Chemistry 101 class. These are the typical courses that freshman have to take and will struggle with. If these courses were to be replaced, it would cut down on the back-tracking students tend to do to fulfill the GEP requirements by creating an overlap of GEP courses and ones within a major’s curricula. If this program were to provide these types of challenging courses, they would be able to reach out to freshman scared of the college mindset, while still helping them with a traditionally difficult course.
The flaws found in this program consist mainly in the courses being offered, not the way they are taught. If these courses could be changed to better fit the freshman class as a whole, it could become a valuable resource that students would want to participate in. This FYI program has great potential, but should be tearing down hurdles, rather than creating them in the obstacle course of GEP requirements.
