Engineering Freshman Seminars

Engineering freshman seminars at Vanderbilt University incorporate several features that make them attractive to faculty and students: (1) they are limited to one-semester hour; (2) they are optional for students and for professors; (3) they are staffed entirely by full-time professors; and (4) the faculty may teach anything they please within their own area of expertise. These seminars were developed in response to student requests for more intimate intellectual contact with senior professors and for earlier exposure to engineering thought. During the first year of experimentation, 11 sections were taught to 85 of our 320 freshman. In 2000-01 12 sections are taught to 173 of 360 freshman. Perhaps not surprisingly in view of the volunteer nature of the courses, objective student ratings of these course are the highest in the School of Engineering, and faculty satisfaction is high. Everyone takes credit for our one-year increase in freshmansophomore retention from 89% to 94%, but these seminars have surely played a role. Our recent initiative in the use of wireless laptop computers in the classroom will further enrich the freshman seminar experience. Other planned improvements include team-taught freshman seminars in conjunction with the colleges of arts and science, education, music, and business.