First-Year Experience

Since the earliest days of higher education in the United States, there have been efforts to support new students as they embark on their first year in colleges and universities. The term first-year experience (FYE) emerged in the middle of the 20th century to refer to a comprehensive constellation of curricular and co-curricular educational initiatives that are intentionally designed to optimize the transition, development, learning, persistence, and success of new students at a college or university.

High-quality FYEs represent campus-wide initiatives that require the involvement of a wide array of institutional actors such as campus leadership, faculty, student services staff, and undergraduates in the role of peer mentors, leaders, and educators as well as effective collaboration across institutional divisions, including academic affairs, student affairs, admissions and ...