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The Trinity College First-Year Seminar Program exists to provide first-year students with small, discussion-based courses that will excite their intellectual curiosity and interest, develop their academic skills, and help to integrate them into the community of scholars that is Duke University. First-year seminar topics are drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines within the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Many have an interdisciplinary focus, while others engage students in intriguing topics within a single academic field of study.
First-year seminars may be taken in fulfillment of the first-year seminar requirement. All of these seminars bear the 49S number (e.g., History 49S) to distinguish them from all other courses offered to undergraduates. Their approval is carefully scrutinized to insure the highest quality possible. Taught only by fully-qualified faculty members with considerable pedagogical experience, these signature classes enroll only 15 first-year students per section, allowing participants to engage closely with the instructor, with each other, and with ideas at the heart of the seminar.
Our link to "Current Seminars" presents an up-to-date listing of our 49S seminar offerings with course descriptions and profiles of the faculty leading these courses. Also listed there are seminars available in the 20S-series that may be of interest to first-year students.
The First-Year Seminar Requirement
Trinity College recognizes the special benefits of small class size, active participation, and greater thematic focus. Believing as we do that these advantages facilitate the transition that incoming students must make from high school to college-level work, we require each Trinity College student to complete a seminar in their first year at Duke. Any seminar for which the student is qualified will fulfill the requirement, but we do encourage first-year students to consider the 49S-series seminars in particular, since these are especially designed for and enrollment is restricted to first-year students.
Click here for important details about the first-year seminar requirement.
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