See also:  First-Year Seminars Handbook

Coordinator:
Professor K.R. Bartlett, MA PhD (Department of History and Victoria College) 585-4590 and First Year Seminar Office, 978-0359

The 199Y seminars are designed to provide entering undergraduates with the opportunity to work closely with an instructor in a class of twenty students. Each Seminar focuses on specific disciplinary or interdisciplinary issues, questions or controversies of particular interest to the instructor, and introduces the students to the excitement of discovery inherent in academic work at the University of Toronto. In addition, students are encouraged to develop their ability to think analytically and to express ideas and logical arguments clearly and coherently, both orally and in writing.

These interactive seminars are not designed as introductory surveys to a discipline or program. Rather, they are intended to stimulate the students’ curiosity and provide an opportunity to get to know a member of the professorial staff in a seminar environment during the first year of study. Thus, students are encouraged to experience material and methods that are outside the area in which they will eventually concentrate in order to benefit fully from the scope and diversity of the Faculty of Arts and Science.

All 199Y seminars are described in the Booklet that is distributed to every newly admitted first year student. All 199Y seminars have generic designators HUM (HUManities) or SCI (SCIence) or SSC (Social SCience), or INX (INterdisciplinary), according to the disciplinary content of the seminar.

All 199Y courses count for degree credit in the same way as any other course. Students may enrol in only one 199Y seminar. These courses can under most circumstances fulfil breadth requirements. For details see the Distribution Requirements,   and the First Year Seminar Courses Booklet.