FYC/fyi Linked Courses
One of the special benefits for some of our students in the FYC Village (Tucker/Owen) is our "linked" courses. In an effort to link the out-of-the-classroom experience with the in-class, the First Year College has joined forces with the First Year Inquiry (FYI) program. Typically, 10 FYI courses are selected for enrollment for the first 200 students to apply to live in the FYC Village. Enrollment for each course is capped at 20 first-year students.
Students are not only living together and taking one of these FYI courses, but they are also concurrently enrolled in the same USC 101A (required FYC course, Introduction to University Education), which is taught by their FYC Academic Advisor.
The faculty member teaching the FYI course and the FYC Advisor work together to find connective tissue between their course content, resulting in collaborative, overlapping classroom activities and graded assignments. Oftentimes, these courses are offered back-to-back, which provides an opportunity for continued classroom content and time for field trips. It is also quite common for the FYI faculty member to attend the USC class and for the FYC Advisor to attend the FYI course with the students, thereby continuing to support a seamless learning community. All of the linked courses will meet a General Education Requirement needed toward graduation.
Past examples of linked FYI courses:
- ENT 203: Honey Bee and Beekeeping
- CH 102: the complementary problem session for the CH 101 lecture course
- HI 251: Early American History
- HI 205: Western Civilization since 1400
- IDS 201: Environmental Ethics
- STS 302: Science, Technology and Human Values
- PSY 201: Controversial Issues in Psychology
- PS 201: Introduction to U.S.Government
- SOC 204: Sociology of the Family.
The FYI courses are all taught by NC State faculty who are dedicated to undergraduate instruction (instruction of first-year students in particular) and who have designed their courses to inspire small group discussion and critical thinking.
The 2001-02 academic year was the first year we offered these linked courses and one of the impacts we have found is on the students' grade point average, which showed a statistically significant increase when compared to other FYC students. Our continued data-driven assessment has revealed that students who take a linked course have statistically significant greater GPA’s and pass more credit hours than those students not in link. This trend even continues into the sophomore year.
This page last updated by mmrust- August 13, 2009 3:18 PM