Finding Your Place is a first-year program (conveniently the same acronym) that allows freshman to be introduced to campus, course work, professors, and fellow classmates in a discipline other than the one they'll be pursuing. Its place-based approach synthesizes knowledge and experiences across many disciplines and prepares them for an engaged life beyond Sewanee.
The program consists of 100-level FYRP courses, representing a diversity of academic disciplines that begin in mid-August and end in mid-October. FYRP courses are conducted in two parts. A nine-day, pre-semester immersion allows students explore the concept of a place and the surrounding Domain through plenary lectures, common readings, and field trips. With assistance from trained mentors, each course is led by one professor—a professor who also serves as the students' first year advisor. Once the semester begins, the course continues with weekly seminars and/or field classes that focuses through one disciplinary lens. Students deepen their understanding of the topic through a "capstone" project. What's more, the FYRP courses even meet a General Education Requirement.
Since 2013, FYP has engaged a lot of students. In the classroom and in the woods, first-years get an up-close look at Sewanee. Older students on campus ("peer mentors") help students in FYP navigate both the campus and the course. Field trips, fun readings, and camaraderie are on the syllabus. Come find you place here on the Mountain.
Faculty from various departments help students discover new things, new places, and subject matter they might not have ever studied. Cross-discplinary relationships are just another layer to liberal arts education. Students will hear lectures & go on adventures with some of the most qualified faulty around—a faculty that considers themselves scholars as well.
There is a place for every discipline in FYP. The interdisciplinary immersion within the Finding Your Place program exposes first-years to people, places, and programs that will leave an impression far beyond their four years on the Mountain. The diversity of courses and learning opportunities with FYP are simply top-notch.
