The transfer from high school to college is daunting for some students. Moving from high-school courses with fewer than 40 students per class to a lecture hall of 500 students is enough to scare anyone away.
“When I was a freshman walking into those huge classes, it was a little overwhelming,” said Emily Cornell, University alumna and administrative program specialist in the First-Year Programs office.
To ease the transition from a structured high-school environment to a more independent and self-motivated college environment, the University offers Freshman Interest Groups, or FIGs, during the fall term to first-year students.
“It’s a good way to take a large university experience and make it smaller,” said Cornell. “It gives the larger classes a more small-class feeling when you know a core group of people.”
FIGs offer students an opportunity to get to know students in the school with similar interests and discuss and explore those interests in greater detail. They are a set of courses freshmen can take with a small group of other first-year students. The 60 different FIGs offered each consists of two related courses based on a certain theme. Examples include the Environmental Studies FIG, which combines a geology course with an environmental course, and the Music and Movement FIG, which offers introductory lecture courses in music and dance. For a complete list of available FIGs, visit tembo.uoregon.edu/FIG/figdisplay.asp.
“It helps students navigate through general education requirements, but do it with students who have similar interests,” said Amy Hughes Giard, FIG adviser in the First-Year Programs office.
Twenty-five students will take one seminar course and two related lecture courses that include non-FIG students.
“It’s in the small seminar where special things happen,” said Karen Sprague, professor of molecular biology and also Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies. Sprague sees the FIGs as an introduction to college life.
“They are, in the broader sense, an opportunity for incoming students right away to get connected (with) what the University is all about,” said Sprague.
Students in the seminar get time with one of the lecture course professors and an undergraduate TA who has taken both courses before, giving students the opportunity to become more acquainted with professors and University life.
Students in the seminars work on study skills, learn to navigate the library and work on how to meet with a professor and get the most out of office hours.
“One of the reasons universities exist is because people who are trying to solve problems, who are trying to figure things out, like to rub elbows with people who are trying to figure things out in other disciplines,” said Sprague.
The individual seminars can also provide extra-curricular experiences for students. This year students in the Environmental Studies FIG will get to travel with Geography Professor William Marcus to visit a site in the Olympic Peninsula where a dam is being removed.
The University also offers FIG courses for students who have decided on a major. Students heading into specific majors can find FIGs that will help prepare them by taking prerequisites with other students in the same field. There are also FIGs for students living on campus that are led by TAs who also live in campus housing. These FIGs help reinforce relationships between students living close together.
In previous years, transferring students could apply for a nearly identical program called Transfer Interest Groups, or TRIGs. However, few transfer students had the space in their schedule for three courses in their first term.
As of this year, transfer students can sign up for a Transfer Seminar, which in many ways acts the same as the College Connections courses. Transfer students can become acquainted with University life, the libraries and the faculty without the time constraint of two other courses that may not fit into their academic plan.
Transfer seminars come in two different forms, Major Seminars and Area Seminars.
Major Seminars are offered by the four majors most often selected by transferring students: journalism, business, sociology and psychology. Students in the Major Seminars program may select one course from a small list of courses offered by their department, which is also a prerequisite for the major. The seminar courses consist of other transfer students in that major.
Area Seminars are for students who have not yet decided on a major but have a general idea of what they want to study. In this case a student may take virtually any course offered by the school. The seminars will consist of students in one of the four broader school divisions – natural sciences, arts and letters, social sciences – and a seminar for students interested in middle and secondary teaching.
Aside from the immediate advantages students get from these programs, meeting other students with similar interests and getting help adjusting to a new school environment, the University has found that FIGs also help students perform better than non-FIG students throughout their time at University.
Students interested in signing up for a FIG or a Transfer Seminar can contact Giard or Cornell at the First-year Programs Office at 346-1241 or visit 470 Oregon Hall.