First Year Seminars

The First Year Seminar Program is the signature academic program of Stetson’s first-year student success initiative. FSEMs underpin our entire undergraduate experience.


FSEMs have become such a vital academic component of higher education institutions nationwide that by 2012, over 800 colleges and universities of varying types and sizes offered FSEMs. The seminars’ popularity is rooted in burgeoning research pointing to statistically significant and substantial positive effects on a student’s successful transition to college, academic performance while in college, and the likelihood of persistence into the second year. These outcomes are consistent with national studies that report first-year GPA as the number one predictor of student retention.

Current Seminars
Past Seminars
FSEM History at Stetson