Course Tutors are available for any writing intensive course (First Year Seminar (FYS), second level writing-intensive courses (CW) and Writing and Rhetoric Program (WRPR), as well as by request. Course Tutors are part of the course's educational goals on writing and communication.

The following are goals that, by consensus of the Faculty, all First Year Seminars should provide students with the opportunity to achieve:

1. to learn what is expected intellectually and ethically for college-level work in the Liberal Arts;

2. to engage seriously with the topic to which one’s seminar is devoted;

3. to develop skills in widely accessible yet scholarly presentation (written and oral), involving observation, analysis, argumentation, research, and the use of sources;

The First Year Seminar is Middlebury's gateway to education in the liberal arts, using intensive engagement between professors and students to facilitate the transition from high school to college.  All first-year students take a seminar in their first semester.