Literature lacks the documentation of students' perceptions of classroom community, connectedness, and learning among freshman students in a first year seminar course. First year students enrolled in college have faced many challenges and difficulties throughout the years that continue to spark inventive measures to address them within higher education. As institutions of higher education approach student success and retention rates with innovative programs, there is still an issue of concern sparking the assumption that these initiatives are not working. There are numerous probable factors contributing to this dilemma, among which are underprepared students, demanding outside factors, lack of classroom community, and deficient amounts of interactions with the campus environment. The main concentration for this research was to identify if the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program affected students' perceptions of classroom community, connectedness, and learning within the first year of their postsecondary education. Quantitative data was collected from approximately two hundred and twenty five students enrolled in thirteen different freshman seminar sections at one institution in south Texas. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]