Elizabethtown College is introducing a new course for sophomores, Second-Year Seminar, set to debut in the spring semester.
The course is a part of the second-year pathway, created with the goal of supporting and helping Blue Jays continue to thrive as sophomores and beyond.
The “sophomore slump” is a term used to describe students who may be feeling overwhelmed and struggling with the growing workload and stress of college. First-year students receive a lot of guidance when they begin but sometimes feel abandoned when the year ends. This led to Etown’s second-year retention group creating this course.
Colleges such as the University of Pennsylvania, Delaware State University, Stockton University and more have similar courses.
Michelle Henry, Assistant Director of Academic Advising & Starfish, sees an immense potential and need for this course.
“This course will enhance students’ understanding of their strengths and skills and how these can be applied to their collegiate and professional career,” Henry said.. “They will be able to reflect on and articulate their own developmental journey, their ‘why’ and how that connects to their future goals.”
Henry recognized the differences in treatment between first-years and sophomores and was inspired to help create a change.
“Our first-year students receive a lot of support through their first-year seminar, peer mentors, Kinesis mentors, Ubuntu mentors and more, but our second-year students may not feel as supported once they’ve moved beyond that first year,” Henry said.
Some of the curriculum Henry will be teaching involves finding a major, career aspirations and a sense of belonging, along with mentoring students during this critical time.
She took the preparation of the course extremely seriously, as she reflected on teachings from her graduate school when making it. She laid out the five key areas that will be focused on: theory, belonging, career skills, self-discovery and a self-design component. The first 12 weeks of the semester are broken up among these components, with the final three weeks dedicated to a self-design project.
“A few components of the course that I’m especially excited about are the activities and discussions around belonging. It’s an important and common word in higher education but true belonging has to be felt individually,” Henry said. “In this course, we will discuss this more and then create a campus event focused on belonging for our community.”
Although this is the first year this course is being offered, the College has provided help to its second-year students for a while. The second-year experience is a program designed to support sophomores, which is now strengthened with the addition of the class. It includes events such as the welcome back dinner, exploration station, study abroad fair, the majors/minors fair and more in hopes to further adjust returning students.
It may be difficult to fit this into a busy schedule, which is the case for sophomore Jack Kriner.
“Unfortunately, I can’t take this class because of the timing with my other classes, but it definitely seems like a valuable class to take,” he said. “The class offers a lot of important lessons that can help out sophomores.”
The class meets once a week on Wednesdays from 2:00 p.m to 2:50 p.m. and is a one credit free elective. Prospective students interested in taking the seminar can sign up on Tuesday, Nov. 12 during their respective timeslot. It is pass/fail, so the goal is more about self-improvement, rather than a letter grade.There are 24 seats open to the class. If you have questions, you can reach out to Henry at henrymichelle@etown.edu to learn more about this exciting course. She hopes to see many sophomores register and encourages them to persuade their friends to join.
