Generation Next Elements:
The purpose of the First Year Seminar (FYS) is to prepare new students for the creative, interdisciplinary, and rigorous modes of inquiry that characterize a York College education. The FYS is intended to create a sense of intellectual community for students and faculty, to emphasize attainment of key learning outcomes, to introduce students to college-level rigor and expectations, to encourage the academic growth of students, and to purposefully expose students to a variety of co-curricular experiences and resources available at York College. An FYS102 Common Hour is a co-requisite for FYS100, FYS101, and FYS110. All incoming first year and transfer students with less than 30 credits must complete a First Year Seminar. AP, Dual Enrollment, and College in High School credit may not be used towards a waiver of the FYS requirement. Students who indicate Veteran status (currently serving or previously served) on their admissions application must complete the Veterans First Year Seminar. The FYS 100/101/110 transfer waiver is not applied to Veterans required to take this course. A minimum grade of 2.0 is required for fulfillment of the FYS requirement. Courses include:
Foundations courses are meant to serve as the initial building block for student learning in the essential areas of Communication, Quantitative thinking, and Citizenship. A minimum grade of 2.0 must be earned for fulfillment of all Foundations requirements. Students will take Foundations courses in the following areas:
- Foundation Communication: This course will focus on providing students with the basis for acquiring written, oral, and visual communication skills, and will facilitate acquisition of active reading, information literacy, and critical/analytical thinking skills. Students who do not meet minimum placement standards may be required to complete additional coursework and/or supplementary instruction to ensure that they meet Communication outcomes.
- Advanced Communication: In order to provide reinforcement of the Communication outcome and its associated skills in a manner that is contextualized for specific disciplines at a more advanced level, major programs are required to include an Advanced Communication requirement. This requirement for students may take the form of 1) completion of a course or a series of courses offered as part of the major program that provide intensive attention to Communication skills development, or 2) Advanced Communication course (not focused on major), that emphasizes the continued development of oral, written, and visual communication skills. Advanced Communication courses include:
- Quantitative Fluency: These courses will help students to analyze, interpret, and employ quantitative, graphic, or visually-represented data for the purpose of understanding issues, addressing problems, and/or answering questions in a variety of academic and everyday settings. Courses include:
- American and Global Citizenship: These courses will provide students with an understanding of citizenship responsibilities at the community, national, international, and global level; comprehension of connections and interactions between local and global contexts; an ability to connect disciplinary and professional concerns or issues to wider personal, community, national, or global issues; and an ability to function positively as an individual and professional in an informed manner in diverse contexts, from the local to the global. Students must choose one course from each area listed below. Students may satisfy by Major either American or Global Citizenship requirements, but not both. Courses include:
- American Citizenship:
- Global Citizenship: Students have the option to complete the Global Citizenship requirement by successfully completing six credits of the same foreign language. Students must refer to the Programs of Study section of the College catalog to verify which majors permit this option. Not all majors have this option available.
Disciplinary Perspectives courses: The courses taken within Disciplinary Perspectives introduce students to concepts and methodologies of that particular broad disciplinary realm. These courses provide students with the genuine basis for integrative learning in the Constellations and in the majors. Provided with such an understanding, students are better prepared to take on more in-depth work in a variety of disciplines, and apply other disciplinary approaches and perspectives to their own major-specific work. Only one of the four areas may be satisfied by Major program requirements. A minimum grade of 1.0 must be earned for fulfillment of all Disciplinary Perspectives requirements (unless the Major program requires a higher grade). Students will take courses in the following areas:
- Humanities: In these courses, students will discuss how past and contemporary social, political, economic, and cultural contexts have shaped the human experience. Courses include:
- Arts: These courses explain how artistic works and other cultural products are related to the context in which they are produced. Students will appreciate and/or engage in the creative process and produce an informed response to aesthetic works. Courses include:
- Social and Behavioral Sciences: These courses analyze how individuals, groups, or institutions are understood using the methods and theories of the disciplines belonging to the social and behavioral sciences. Courses include:
- Natural and Physical Sciences: Students will understand the nature of scientific inquiry and use the scientific method and technologies to analyze aspects of the natural and physical world using experiment and observation data. Students will articulate the relationship and applicability of the natural and physical sciences to contemporary challenges, including appropriate use and misuse of scientific information. Courses include:
Constellations are groupings of advanced-level courses around broad themes that are addressed using multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. Constellations build upon the skills acquired in the Foundations courses and the base of knowledge and methodologies acquired in the Disciplinary Perspectives courses. Constellations will allow students to apply higher-level thinking and communication skills while increasing the breadth and depth of their education. Students will take four three-credit courses in a Constellation from a minimum of three disciplines (prefixes). Courses taken in Minors may fulfill Constellation requirements. Programs may have one Constellation course serve as both a Constellation and a Major requirement, if the course is a certified Constellation or HIPI course. There is no limit on the number of courses that a student may count towards a Minor and Constellations, even if the Minor is required by the Major. A minimum grade of 1.0 in all courses must be earned for fulfillment of the Constellation requirement (unless the Major program requires a higher grade).
Students may also take up to TWO courses in the grouping of courses called High Impact Practice and Innovation (HIPI) courses, that focus on Study abroad, Project or problem-based learning, Community-based learning, Interdisciplinary undergraduate research, or Service learning. Students do not declare the HIPI grouping, but may take two HIPI-approved courses (up to six credits) to take the place of theme-based Constellation courses.
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