First-Year Seminars

Guelph’s First-Year Seminars (FYS) are designed to provide you with an engaging and interactive learning environment. With no more than 18 students in your class, you'll get to know your prof and all of your classmates. Seminars are open to only first-year students from any program at the university. Emphasis is on a relaxed, discussion-based environment that allows you to engage with your fellow students to assist you with a successful transition to university life. 

Seminar topics have included:

• Guns, Germs, Steel and the Great Escape
• Baseball by the Numbers: Learning How to Analyse Baseball Data
• Feeding 9 Billion Ideas Congress

Here’s what some students have said about their seminar experience:

• “Warm and comfortable environment – everyone is free to express their opinion.”
• “I now feel much better prepared to take on more challenging courses.”
• “Open-ended, in-depth, flexible style.”
• “The course opened my mind to new perspectives and ways of thinking.”
• “I learned to be critical of resources, ideas and thoughts.”
• “I’ve already started to get higher marks on my essays in other classes because of what I’ve learned in this course.”