Anybody on campus could tell you what FYE is. The literalists would say that it stands for First Year Experience, the humanists would say that it’s a multi-faceted program aimed at getting the freshmen involved, the perfectionists would tell you during a detailed 11-minute summary complete with PowerPoint slides and the nihilists just wouldn’t have cared enough to answer.

However, the year 2006 has marked a change in the definition of the FYE program. What was originally a full-semester course is now just a pass/fail class that will meet only five times before the end of the term.

It’s a big change to be sure. But what could have prompted an adaptation this huge? The answer, as it turns out, was a lack of student involvement in a program designed to cultivate student involvement.

“The reason… was because we found that some of the topics in FYE were not being discussed to the full length of the 50 minute meetings,” said Joe Ginese, a graduate assistant working with the office of New Student Programs. “So, we figured that we’d combine some of the related topics, such as time management and stress, with the registration deadline because, with registration classes, we noticed that kids would only be in the FYE sessions for 10 to 15 minutes instead of the full 50 minutes.”

But the class schedule hasn’t been the only thing to be altered.

Much to the chagrin of the upperclassmen, community service is no longer required to pass FYE. In its place, freshmen need only attend at least five pre-approved campus events.

“With community service, a lot of freshmen dragged their feet,” said Ginese. “Some of these new events are community-service related… but now the freshmen have a broad range of events that they can go to, with a lot of different options, which makes it a whole lot easier since they can choose from a list that is constantly updated.”

Nevertheless, the freshmen reaction to the new FYE has been mixed, to say the least.

Jonas Stankovich ’10 said, “I hate FYE. It eats up time and we don’t do anything important.”

On the other hand, Vivian Carballo ’10 said, “I like FYE…the upperclassmen instructors are honest about college life.”

Despite the ambiguity over the effectiveness of FYE, the University maintains the program’s importance in helping freshmen adjust to college life.

“FYE definitely helps,” said Ginese. “I think it’s a really valuable experience and that it can only go up from here. I definitely think that it’s necessary”

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