First-Year Seminar Program

All entering Middlebury students take a First-Year Seminar during their first semester on campus. These seminars are writing intensive courses, limited to 15 students each, and they are taught by regular, full-time faculty members who also serve as students' academic advisers for their first three semesters at Middlebury.

First-Year Seminar topics extend over 40 different academic areas. Some recent topics include:

Beyond Cowboys: The Literary West

Modern Age of Science

Contemporary Ireland through Fiction and Film

Crime & Punishment in American History

Sustainable Lands, Wild Lands: Toward a Conservation Paradigm

The Economics of Social Issues

The Age of Crusades: Religion, Society, and Politics in the Middle Ages