About the Program
The First Year Experience, is comprised of the DREW 100: Drew Seminar course in the Fall semester and the DREW 110: Launch Workshop in the Spring semester. Together, these courses offer first-year students the necessary skills for critical thinking and inquiry and writing, provide opportunities to learn how their unique interests and goals can guide them in exploring potential academic and career directions, and facilitate their transition to college life as engaged members of the Drew student community.
DREW 100: Drew Seminar
Taken by all entering first-year students in their first semester, the Drew Seminar introduces students to the intellectual life of the liberal arts college. The seminars revolve around an intellectual area of exploration, designed by the Faculty member. The Drew Seminar is rigorous and analytical, engaging explorations of a significant question, mode of inquiry, or topic. The goal is to help students develop the academic skills and habits of mind that are central to higher education; Faculty share their intellectual passions and welcome students into the collaborative culture of the liberal arts college. The seminar is designed to help students develop the following skills and habits: critical thinking, writing skills, rhetorical knowledge, oral communication, and information literacy. Activities include formal and informal writing, discussion of readings, oral presentations, and writing revision.
Drew Seminar Learning Objectives
At the end of the course, students should be able to:
- articulate an evidence-based point of view on a topic in written form based on an interaction with texts and ideas.
- communicate effectively in oral forms in ways that are appropriate to the situation.
- identify the audience, purpose, and context for written texts (including their own) and explain how these features shape the text in form and content.
- identify a topic and argument in a text and in oral discussion and describe how the author/speaker develops and supports that topic or argument.
DREW 110: Launch Workshop: Preparation for Career and Academic Success
Taken by all first-year students in their second semester, DREW 110: Launch Workshop is a guided experience designed to help students learn how their unique interests and goals can guide them in exploring potential academic and career directions. A series of carefully planned exercises and assignments will help students identify and further define their strengths, purpose, identity, and potential ways of responding to the needs of the community and the world. DREW 110 will help students recognize and articulate the skills they are developing in their overall college experience and will assist them in building networks and relationships with mentors in support of their academic and career success. By the end of the course, students should have begun to develop an initial strategic action plan to prepare them for their success while at Drew and beyond.
Launch Workshop Learning Objectives
At the end of this course, students should be able to:
- effectively interact with mentors and other resources and tools available to them through Launch and its 18 Launch Communities.
- evaluate which sought-after transferable skills they have begun to develop and those they need to attain to pursue their academic or career plans.
- align their selection of potential majors and career areas with what they’ve learned about themselves and their identification of community, social, intercultural, and/or world needs in which they would like to engage.
- develop a short-term action plan that includes academic and experiential learning choices and networking opportunities in preparation for the demands of potential majors or careers.
- articulate skills attainment, career exploration, planning, and development progress to a variety of audiences via digital media and oral communication.
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