FSU Foundations

FSU Foundations is a valuable part of the first-year experience. It is a course that is designed to support first-year students through their first semester.  Regardless of your academic experience in high school, all first-year students will find that being a college student is very different.  There are new expectations to meet, policies to remember, resources to know, events to go to, friends to be made, responsibilities to have, living experiences to share, and/or commuting intricacies to learn.  FSU Foundations helps new students balance these elements of college life.    

Each Foundations course, which is capped at a maximum of 20 students per course, is taught by three people: a faculty member, a seminar facilitator and a student Peer Mentor. 

The faculty member is a professor whose class is linked to the Foundations seminar much the same way a lab is attached to a science course.  This class is comprised of only first-year students and the faculty member helps students to understand new expectations about classwork, participation, and how to build on previous academic success.  The seminar facilitator is a member of the campus community who teaches the Foundations seminar portion of the course.  This seminar meets for one hour, one day a week, and is comprised of the same students in the linked class. The Peer Mentor is an upperclassmen student who is trained to share pertinent knowledge with new students and co-teaches the weekly seminar.

In addition to helping students acclimate academically and socially to the college lifestyle, Foundations also focuses on helping new students investigate their chosen major and perhaps make an informed decision about changing their major in the future.  Foundations courses also demonstrate the abundant resources on campus and how to use them to their fullest potential. Overall, Foundations is a vital part of the first-year experience at Framingham State and helps students feel that they are part of the FRAMily!