Frequently Asked Questions
Incoming fall first-year students indicate their interest in specific FYS by filling out the Academic Interest Survey. Based on the survey results, students are preregistered by the Office of Undergraduate Curricula, the Academic Advising Program, and the Office of the Registrar into two courses (usually for a total of six credit hours), one of which may be a FYS. This occurs in the month of May, before the first first-year orientation session in early June. Most FYS seats are made available during this process. Please note that the Honors Carolina Program registers honors first-year students into honors FYS through a separate preregistration process during this time.
The remaining fall FYS seats are released during the New First Year Student Orientation summer registration sessions in July. Seats in the FYS are apportioned and released systematically throughout the summer so that each of the sessions has approximately the same ratio of students to available FYS seats. Seats that are made available during these registration sessions open the moment the session begins. Registering students who have FYS in their “shopping carts” are likely to see some FYS seats open and then close as their fellow students register for these sections. During this time, we ask that you do not adjust the number of seats or restrict enrollment (through department/instructor consent or reserve capacities). Beginning in early August, all first-year students can drop and add FYS from their schedule using the Connect Carolina online registration system.
First-year students who do not enroll in a FYS during the fall are given a priority window to enroll in a spring FYS during the first few days of first-year registration in October. Controlled enrollment is removed from all spring FYS at the end of the priority registration window process so that all first-year students (i.e., those who were already enrolled in a fall FYS) can add and drop FYS via Connect Carolina.
First Year Seminars are designed and structured for incoming first-year students with no prior college experience. Transfer students are not eligible to enroll in a FYS.
On the morning of the first day of class, scheduling officers can add “instructor consent” to FYS in ConnectCarolina if the instructor would like to exercise more control over enrollment in his or her FYS. Some instructors take control of their FYS so that they can increase enrollment in response to requests from students who are eager to enroll. Other instructors take control because their FYS progresses too quickly to incorporate students who miss the first few sessions. We apprise all FYS instructors of this policy and ask them to notify their department’s course scheduling officer if they want instructor consent put on their course when classes begin. Please be aware, instructors do not have access to enroll students directly into FYS. They must get in touch with their course scheduling officers to do so. Course scheduling officers have found it helpful to communicate with their FYS instructors before classes begin to verify that instructors are aware of and understand this opportunity.
The instructor would need to submit a FYS Prospectus Form. The Prospectus Form is due by March 1 for the subsequent fall semester and by October 1 for the subsequent spring semester. We assign appropriate general education credits, attach the approved general education attributes in Connect Carolina, and list the FYS on our online brochure. The course scheduling officer would schedule the seminar as a “special topic,” using the “First Year Seminar: Special Topics” course number, XXXX 89. This option should be used if an instructor wants to try out a new seminar without going through the formal course approval process. Departments can offer several 89s simultaneously under the same subject code by listing each section with a unique section number.
A FYS can be taught two times as a Special Topics 89 before it needs a permanent number. Once the course has been taught more than two times, the instructor should submit the course as a new, permanent number in the Curriculum Inventory Management System (CIM). This option should be used if the faculty member and the department are committed to offering the seminar more than once under the permanent number.
End of semester student evaluations of teaching for all FYS are conducted using the eXplorance Blue Course Evaluation System, which allows students to complete online course evaluations through ConnectCarolina or via email link. All FYS are automatically selected to be evaluated through this process, and students evaluate FYS using a first-year seminar-specific instrument. The Associate Dean eventually receives a summary of the course evaluations for each FYS. To encourage maximum participation in the online course evaluation process, we ask that instructors try to schedule a block of time in class, ask their students to bring a laptop computer, and allow students to complete the form at the beginning of the class period.