About the Seminars

First-Year Seminars offer every first-year student an opportunity to participate in a course structured around intensive writing, independent research, and small group discussion.

The First-Year Seminar Program serves four purposes. First, by means of a uniform writing requirement, the seminar stresses the importance of written expression in all disciplines. Second, it provides an attractive and exciting supplement to the usual introductory survey. Third, it guarantees each first-year student at least one small course. Fourth, the program engages each first-year student in the research process, offering an early experience of the scholarship that fuels Dartmouth's upper-level courses.