Chico State First-Year Experience offers General Education courses that include collaborative, active, and engaged teaching and learning designed to support the first-year transition. These High Impact courses benefit college students of all backgrounds, resulting in higher grade point averages, better retention and graduation rates, and higher student satisfaction with their education. Our courses help students explore their identities and interests, develop successful skills and habits, and build strong connections with peers and faculty. Many courses include embedded peer support, undergraduate research, connections to the community beyond the classroom, and immediate engagement as scholars and decision-makers. In addition to these curricular offerings, FYE also hosts events for first-time in college, first-year transfer, and undeclared students designed to welcome students to campus, support their transition to Chico State, and help them develop a strong sense of belonging on campus and in the community.

Research clearly shows that students who become active and engaged members of the University community in their first year are more likely to graduate than those who do not.

High Impact FYE General Education Courses

High Impact FYE GE Courses provide a nontraditional approach to learning. These GE courses are carefully designed based on national student success research and provide students with experience as emerging innovators and professionals. All course activities serve to advance real-world learning that culminates in the public of a class project that impacts campus and/or the surrounding communities. Many of these courses include an embedded peer mentor who acts as a model student, providing information, support, and collaboration in completing assignments, facilitating group work, and seeking resources on campus. The culminating experience in each class includes a public component that may include research proposals, policy recommendations, community dialogues, simulations, short films, interactive exhibits, and more. Students in these courses leave feeling competent and capable in many of the areas that future classes will ask of them including research methods, group collaboration, presentation design, and discussion participation. 

See the FYE website for additional High Impact General Education Course offerings.