This document summarizes UC Davis's First-Year Seminar Program. It provides key facts about the program, including that seminars are 1-2 unit courses for new students on a variety of subjects, with around 200 offered each year. It highlights example seminar topics that are hands-on, creative, and involve meeting experts. It emphasizes benefits like small class sizes that facilitate discussion, enthusiastic professors, learning fun topics in-depth, and meeting faculty. The goal is to explore ideas in new ways and help students develop skills like research, presentation, collaboration, and self-development.

1. The First-Year
Seminar Program
Seminar Program

2. The Basic Facts
• First-Year Seminars are one or two unit
courses designed for students new to UC
Davis
• Discussion and question-based learning for
up to 19 students
• There's a huge variety of subjects -- 200
seminars are taught each year
• Established in 1988 and managed by the
Center for Excellence in Teaching and
Learning

3. So Why Should You
Take a First-Year
Seminar?
So Why Should You
Take a First-Year
Seminar?

4. Do creative projects
like building a rocket
with a parachute.
They're fun and
hands-on!

5. Design and make ceramic art for the
UC Davis Bee Haven.

6. Learn to fold
origami and arrange
flowers in the
Japanese style
Discover what the
Japanese
definition of visual
beauty is.

7. Meet "Thursday," the trash-baby made of
student's waste from one day.

8. Discover the psychologies of drummers by
describing their timing, syncopation, and
other traits.

9. Some seminars look
more traditional...
...but explore ideas
in new ways.
Students map Jean Toomer'sStudents map Jean Toomer's
novelnovel CaneCane onto Google Mapsonto Google Maps

10. Why are seminars fun?
• Small class size facilitates friendly,
in depth discussion
• Professors are enthusiastic because they
contribute personal experience
• They reveal the academic side of fun topics
and the fun side of academic topics
• You can meet famous people and faculty and
go to fun places

11. Learn with NASA
researcher Dawn Sumner
Discuss with famous
novelist Kim Stanley
Robinson
Tweet with inspirational, one-armed drummer
Rick Allen of Def Leppard

12. Visit the UC Davis'
Bee Haven
Or a Cave Automatic
Virtual Environment

13. Other Reasons to Take
a Seminar
• They're only a unit or two
• Take a class about a topic outside of your major
• Learn to: (1) Conduct research
(2) Present your ideas orally
(3) Work in groups
(4) Develop yourself in general

14. Every seminar has a detailed description at
cetl.ucdavis.edu/first-year-seminars
Read complete first-year seminar profiles about the
seminar examples in this presentation on the CETL
website

15. Seminars Shown in this
Presentation in order of
depiction
• Rocket Propulsion by Mohamed Hafez
• Art, Bees, and Survival by Diane Ullman and Donna
Billick
• Japanese Culture: Nature and Visual Arts by
Haruko Sakakibara
• Creative Responses to Climate Change by Stephen
Wheeler
• Psychology of Drummers by Brad Henderson
• Mapping the Harlem Renaissance by Phillip Barron
• So You Think You Can Write? by Amy Clarke

16. Photo Credit
• Rocket photos by Mohamed Hafez
• Ceramic Art photos by Jenna Christopherson
• Flower Arrangement photo by Haruko
Sakakibara
• "Thursday" image by Stephen Wheeler
• Origami, Psychology of Drummer, and Harlem
Renaissance photos by Ryder Blue
• Dawn Sumner photo from the UC Davis Geology
Website
• Rick Allen, Kim Stanley Robinson, and CAVE
image from Wikipedia