Skip to Gallatin Navigation Skip to Gallatin Main Content

First-Year Program

The First-Year Program includes a series of first-year courses and activities designed to enrich your classroom learning and foster connections between your academic and extracurricular worlds. The First-Year Program begins with orientation and a variety of events during Welcome Week. 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—"The Ancient Hero and the Heroic"; "The Thingliness of Things"; "Capitalism and Democracy"— that incorporates significant world texts representing several disciplines.

The first-year writing seminar and first-year research seminar constitute a two-semester sequence intended to help students develop their writing and research skills and to prepare them for the kinds of writing they will be doing in their other courses. Rather than attribute the success of excellent writing to a writer’s innate gifts or to some mysterious moment of inspiration, these seminars approach writing as a craft that can be learned by acquiring the skills appropriate for each stage in the writing process (free writing, drafting, revising, polishing). Each seminar is organized around a particular theme—"Aesthetics on Trial"; "Wilderness and Civilization"; "Art and the Dream Life"—with related readings that serve both as springboards for discussion and models for students’ own essays. Usually, the writing seminar begins with personal and descriptive essays and proceeds to focus on the critical essay. A significant portion of the research seminar is devoted to working on a long research paper, with attention to formulating key questions, choosing and evaluating sources, developing a thesis, structuring the argument as a whole and revising and polishing the final paper.

 

Fall 2023 First-Year Program Courses
 

Course # Title Instructor
FIRST-UG104 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Literature and the Environment Anne DeWitt
FIRST-UG105 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Urban Music, Urban Spaces Kwami Coleman
FIRST-UG127 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: The Use and Abuse of Story Karen Hornick
FIRST-UG128 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Data: A History Cameron Bunker
FIRST-UG131 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Introduction to Science and Technology Studies Sophia Roosth
FIRST-UG134 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Travel and Travel Writing: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean Subah Dayal
FIRST-UG137 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Walking New York Peder Anker
FIRST-UG138 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Bananas: An Interdisciplinary Case Study Amy Spellacy
FIRST-UG139 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Puppetry and Material Performance Kristin Horton
FIRST-UG140 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Work, Freedom and Social Change Jacob Remes
FIRST-UG141 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Media and Empire Paula Chakravartty
FIRST-UG319 First-Year Writing Seminar: Aesthetics on Trial Christopher Trogan
FIRST-UG357 First-Year Writing Seminar: Wilderness and Civilization Andrew Libby
FIRST-UG403 First-Year Writing Seminar: Abundance: Thinking, Writing, and Creating In The Age of Plenty Trevor Jockims
FIRST-UG420 First-Year Writing Seminar: The Politics of Home: Gender, Race, Class and Kinship Rosanne Kennedy
FIRST-UG423 First-Year Writing Seminar: Bedtime Writing: The Literature of Sleep Adrian Versteegh
FIRST-UG438 First-Year Writing Seminar: Writing Against Time Erag Ramizi
FIRST-UG446 First-Year Writing Seminar: Twilight of the Gods Eugene Vydrin
FIRST-UG448 First-Year Writing Seminar: Writing About Ethics David Wills
FIRST-UG451 First-Year Writing Seminar: Poetics of the Citizen Velina Manolova
FIRST-UG455 First-Year Writing Seminar: Immigration, Race, and Citizenship in the U.S. Jude Webre
FIRST-UG456 First-Year Writing Seminar:Trans Poetics and Social Movement Kay Gabriel
FIRST-UG457 First-Year Writing Seminar: Engaging Art in Our World Ernest Bryant
FIRST-UG459 First-Year Writing Seminar: The Self in its Spaces Cris Beam
FIRST-UG462 First-Year Writing Seminar: The Critic as Artist in the Digital Age Filip Noterdaeme
FIRST-UG463 First-Year Writing Seminar: Pilgrimage and the Pilgrim's Tale in the Medieval World Sarah Waidler
FIRST-UG464 First-Year Writing Seminar: Shapeshifters: Writing in and across Genre Allyson Paty
FIRST-UG465 First-Year Writing Seminar: Do Colors Have Histories? Hallie Franks
FIRST-UG467 First-Year Writing Seminar: Contemporary U.S. Playwriting Kristoffer Diaz
FIRST-UG468 First-Year Writing Seminar: The Poetic History of Science in Western Thought Emily Long
FIRST-UG469 First-Year Writing Seminar: Books to Read for the End of the World Cathryn Piwinski
FIRST-UG470 First-Year Writing Seminar: What Are Poets For? Rebecca Reilly
FIRST-UG49 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: The Self and the Call of the Other Judith Greenberg
FIRST-UG69 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Boundaries and Transgressions Marie Cruz Soto
FIRST-UG71 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Political Theatre and Performance Valerie Forman
FIRST-UG77 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: The Game of Go and the Art of War in Early China Ethan Harkness
FIRST-UG89 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Double, Double Eugene Vydrin
FIRST-UG92 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: Predicting the Future Matthew Stanley
FIRST-UG96 First-Year Interdisciplinary Seminar: The Idea of Nothing Gregory Erickson