First-Year Experience

Overview

Chico State's First-Year Experience (FYE) program offers General Education (GE) courses designed to support the transition into college with collaborative, active, and engaging teaching methods. These High-Impact courses foster success for students of all backgrounds, leading to higher GPAs, improved retention and graduation rates, and greater satisfaction with their college experience. FYE courses help students:

  • Explore their academic identities and interests
  • Develop essential academic skills and habits
  • Build meaningful connections with peers and faculty

Courses integrate some combination of peer support, opportunities for undergraduate research, and community connections, allowing students to engage as active scholars and decision-makers from the start. Beyond these courses, FYE also hosts events for first-time college students, transfer students, and undeclared majors, aiming to welcome, guide, and help students build a strong sense of belonging at Chico State and within the surrounding community.

Research has shown that students who engage actively in their first year are more likely to succeed and graduate.

High Impact FYE General Education Courses

Our High-Impact FYE GE courses use Chico’s own Public Sphere Pedagogy to drive learning and explore interests. Through these courses, students experience learning as active and authentic participants. Coursework culminates in public projects with the possibility of direct impacts on campus or in the community. Many courses include an embedded peer mentor—a model student who provides guidance, collaboration, and support throughout assignments, group work, and resource exploration.

Course Highlights: Students develop skills in research, group collaboration, presentation design, and critical discussions. Each course culminates in a public sphere experience that connects students to experts, professionals, and like-minded peers on issues they care about.

UNIV 105W  Self, Identity, and Sustainability (W)  3 Units  GE, W  
Typically Offered: Fall and spring  
This course introduces several methods for considering identity formation using students' direct experiences and researched examples of "emerging adult identity" and "eco-identity". Students read, write, discuss, and do case analyses and problem-solving to examine tensions among the idea of a consistent "self", the concept of "identity" as a set of ongoing processes, and the gaps between self-presentation and environmental commitments. 3 hours lecture.  (021144)  
General Education: Lifelong Learning and Self-Development (E)  
Grade Basis: Graded  
Repeatability: You may take this course for a maximum of 3 units  
Course Attributes: Lower Division; Writing Course  
UNIV 120  Transitions and Transformation: Academic Identity and Success  3 Units  GE  
Prerequisite: Freshman standing or faculty permission.  
Typically Offered: Fall and spring  
This course explores the modern university system and its support for and barriers to student success. Topics include emerging adulthood, liminality, sense of belonging, hidden curriculum, student support programs, and academic identity. Students serve as researchers, using self-reflection, interviews, and library research to produce preliminary findings and suggest pathways to increased belonging and student success. 3 hours lecture.  (009580)  
General Education: Social and Behavioral Sciences (4)  
Grade Basis: Graded  
Repeatability: You may take this course for a maximum of 3 units  
Course Attributes: Lower Division  

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