Freshmen beginning their undergraduate education enter college with various backgrounds and expectations. Institutions seek to properly acclimate first-year students into this new transition. One way to help a first-year student transition into college is with a first-year program. First-year programs provide a unique space for students to adjust…

First-year students face a number of problems in adjusting to college and university life. This study investigated the academic achievement of students who had successfully completed freshman orientation through a first-year experience program. The term "first-year experience" will be used interchangeably with "first-year…

In this study, a phenomenological approach was used to explore first-year seminar students' perceptions of two modes of study skills instruction, and the resulting influence on noncognitive skills, for students at a 4-year, private college in the southeastern United States. The exploration focused on two modes of study skills instruction,…

To increase persistence, many universities provide first-year seminars (FYS) for entering students. Although there have been consistent positive outcomes for FYS participants, many times, the research is based on short-term outcomes, or less rigorous analysis. This study assessed short- and long-term outcomes for Hispanic (n = 456) and Hispanic…

The personal, social, and academic challenges during the transition from high school to college contribute to lower retention rates and lower GPAs. These challenges are even more pronounced for historically underserved populations. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, students face new challenges and a lack of access to the typical resources and…

Nearly half of all new community college students drop out of school before successfully completing a degree or credential. It has been found that the greatest percentage of these "non-completer" students terminate their college careers before entering their second year of attendance. First-year seminars (FYS) have long been believed to…

The volume of transfer students across college and university campuses in the United States continues to rise; however, institutions continue to struggle with identifying and applying best practices that encourage these students to earn their baccalaureate degree at rates comparable to their non-transferring peers. Prior research suggests many…

Objective: To examine perceptions of mental health stigma among first-year student service members/veterans (SSM/Vs). Participants: 107 SSM/Vs enrolled in a first-semester seminar completed a pre- and post-test measuring five constructs; 1) stigma toward mental health in the military, 2) academic readiness, 3) mental health stigma in college, 4)…

First Year Seminars have been found to positively impact student experience and retention in universities, especially in large-outcome measures such as grade point average, retention rates, and ultimately, graduation rates. Common learning experiences, a high-impact practice, such as course readings, a syllabus template, and discussion topics help…

Undergraduate peer mentorship has the potential to transform mentor and mentee alike. In an effort to understand the potential positive effects of a peer mentorship program on honors peer mentors, paired sample t-tests of data from a pre-test/post-test of at least 69 honors first-year seminar facilitators shows that respondents grew in their…

The Saint Mary's University first-year student success program was developed by its strategic enrollment management (SEM) group to enhance support for first-year students. As an integrated program that implements student success modules into the first-year core curriculum, this initiative has proven to be effective in enhancing student engagement…

Faculty development is a critical component to the success of any first-year seminar. This article explains the nationally recognized faculty development model of University 101 Programs at the University of South Carolina, including the philosophy behind why we do what we do, descriptions of the various initiatives, and best practices underlying…

This article explores the range and frequency of First-Year Writing students' emotional responses towards a project requiring multimodal composing and distribution of their work to an online public audience prior to and after completing the assignment. I analyzed the results using Driscoll and Powell's emotion categories (generative, disruptive,…

In seeking to close equity gaps within a first-year student seminar course, course designers leveraged emerging research on intrapersonal competency cultivation, known to significantly predict student success across diverse students (NAS, 2018). After re-designing the course to intentionally cultivate specific intrapersonal competencies,…

University educators struggle to provide effective assistance to students for the transition to college life (Center for Collegiate Mental Health, 2019). Like many other institutions, Florida State University, population 42,000, has grappled with how best to help students meet these challenges. In 2018, the university administration requested a…