Gallatin’s First-Year Program begins with orientation and continues throughout the year with a series of first-year courses and activities designed to enrich your classroom learning and foster connections between your academic and extracurricular worlds. At orientation you will meet faculty who will help you to think about your education as an interdisciplinary and independent venture. To help you settle into NYU and Gallatin, orientation also includes many social activities, informal discussions, and other opportunities to help you make new friends and become familiar with NYU and the surrounding Greenwich Village neighborhood.
First-year students (as well as transfer students who enter with fewer than 32 credits) take three courses that constitute the First-Year Program: the first-year interdisciplinary seminar, first-year writing seminar and first-year research seminar. The First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar introduces students to the goals, methods, and philosophy of university education and to the interdisciplinary, individualized approach of the Gallatin School. These small classes of about 18 students encourage discussion rather than lecturing and focus on a theme that incorporates significant world texts representing several disciplines. First-Year Writing Seminar and First-Year Research Seminar comprise a two-semester sequence to help students develop their writing skills and to prepare them for the kinds of writing they will be doing in their other courses. Each seminar is organized around a particular theme with related readings that serve both as springboards for discussion and models for students’ own essays.
