Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

While Syracuse University structures its First-Year Seminar 101 course around students sharing their experiences with their cultures and identities, students taking the course said nobody wants to speak. In some classes, students said they don’t know each other’s names.

“It’s just kind of a ‘check it off the list once a week’ (class),” said Mackenzie Johnson, a junior creative writing major and an FYS-enrolled transfer student.

The fall 2022 semester marks the second year of FYS after it replaced SEM 100, the university’s formerly six-week, single-credit course for first-year and transfer students. According to FYS’ website, the SU faculty, staff and graduate students who serve as lead instructors are there to facilitate discussion and to help students broach topics like identity and prejudice.

Many students taking and facilitating the course said it falls short both in its content and execution. Peer leaders CloudySky Khazraishokatkhou and David Griffin said the class has a lack of effective community and rapport building, and uses approaches that are too “academic.” Khazraishokatkhou, a junior majoring in psychology, said the course content is important, but they wish the material was more engaging and student-centered.

“When you’re focusing on such heavy topics, it’s hard to then make that personal,” Khazraishokatkhou said. “So sometimes it doesn’t feel like the students are the focus of the class.”

First-year finance major Julia Moreno said many of the ways the course attempts to engage experience-based discussion end up having a negative effect. Questions revolving around exploring identities can make students feel singled out, she said.

“Every single question is about you,” Moreno said. “‘What are your identities? What are your privileges? What stereotypes do you have in your brain? What do you think about?’ But nobody wants to share that because a lot of it’s really personal.”

Leo Saldanha, a bioengineering freshman, said though his classmates are hesitant to speak during class discussions, they’ve been open in sharing their thoughts and experiences with each other in smaller groups. He said he’s learned new ways to describe or classify experiences he’s had, and appreciates the class’s content.

Discussion topics and content developed for the small classes are mainly based on academic articles, podcasts, TED Talks, social media, videos, reflective writing and campus and community engagement, according to FYS’s website.

Gita Goldberg, a transfer student and junior communications and rhetorical studies major, said the class doesn’t achieve what she would expect from an introductory course intended for new students. She said FYS has not covered subject matters focused on introducing students to SU and helping them navigate their first semester at university like she expected it would.

Saldanha’s group took a field trip to go ice skating at the beginning of the semester. Though every FYS class takes a field trip, Saldanha said his group bonded on its trip. Afterwards, he said the class was able to have better discussions about the transition to college.

Goldberg and Johnson, both transfer students, said the course doesn’t offer the sort of socialization or bonding that would make their transition easier.

Johnson, who transferred to SU from Marion Military Institute, said the predominance of first-year perspectives in her class has only worsened the disconnect she feels with her classmates.

“High school was nearly four years ago for me, (so) I don’t connect with freshmen,” Johnson said. “For transfer students, that definitely is a gap.”

Goldberg, also a transfer student from Marion, voiced similar concerns. She said as a third-year student, she’s already acquired much of the knowledge the course is designed around. Because of their difference in experience and need for guidance in other areas like transfer credits and graduation planning, Johnson said it would be beneficial for transfer students to have separate seminars from first-years.

With the transition from SEM 100 to FYS 101, FYS Associate Director Jimmy Luckman mentioned that some schools and colleges within the university got rid of their respective introductory courses for first year students.

Despite their concerns, students said they understand the need for the course and know the topics it covers are important.

Khazraishokatkhou said their objective as a peer leader is to familiarize students with the resources available to them on campus, and that the course is helpful in establishing that awareness. They also said adjusting the way they teach to address gaps in the course framework for international students has been a learning experience.

“It’s hard because you don’t want to be patronizing,” Khazraishokatkhou said. “It’s just being cognizant of who’s in your class and what’s their frame of reference? How are they going to perceive what I’m saying?”

Marcelle Haddix, SU’s associate provost for strategic initiatives, oversees the FYS program. Haddix said she wants students to understand that FYS is not meant to be all-encompassing in the topics it covers.

“The First Year Seminar curriculum is meant to introduce and provide just an overview of what we hope someone’s entire academic experience will expose them to, but it’s not a one and done,” she said.

Saldanha said the range of topics the course covers achieve this objective.

“I think it’s fulfilled its purpose as a class everyone has to take, because these are things that need to be talked about,” Saldanha said.

Still, some students feel the course’s methods of delivery fall short. Moreno said faults in FYS’s structure and logistics can overshadow the importance of its subject material.

“The point of the class is absolutely necessary,” Moreno said. “But how it’s run and gone about is just not effective at all.”

Published on November 8, 2022 at 2:34 am