Three students sitting at a table with a book, talking together
Three masked people at a lab bench
A large group of students sitting in a circle outside in Adirondack chairs
Students at a table, smiling, with a faculty member also seated

First-Year Seminars strengthen students’ ties to each other, to faculty, and to their own learning–from their first moments on campus.

Our Purpose
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Students gathered around their professor examining a rare book in the library.

About FYS

First-Year Seminars (FYS) welcome students to Hopkins by inviting them to ask audacious questions. Faculty experts guide small groups of passionate peers as they discuss and debate arguments, visit archives or museums, contribute to research or conferences, attend plays or concerts, and more. As communities where we form and reflect on big ideas, FYSs ensure that every new student finds an intellectually exciting and supportive home at Homewood. Each seminar is unique to the faculty teaching it, but all are discussion-based with embedded experiential learning, capped at 12 students, and graded Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory.