Reporter
The towering building, wide grasslands, and long red brick road of the CSU Bakersfield campus can intimidate even the strongest students. It is up to the CSUB First Year Seminar class to make them brave explorers. The freshman year class has extended from a quarter to a year and there are mixed opinions about the change.
Dr. John Tarjan has worked at CSUB for 31 years and is involved in the new general education program and coordinating the CSUB First Year Seminar course. He teaches two sections of the course and has specific plans for his students.
“The desire was not to reduce the amount of material being covered but reconceptualize the course and figure out that it would be better to spread the learning outcomes over a year,” said Tarjan. “One day a week is right for students and one hour a week is probably more conducive.”
Tarjan explained several goals he and other GE program coordinators had in changing the course length. The first goal is to have students make connection with campus. The second is to make students aware of resources on campus. The third is to develop their skills to help with success.
“We required students to plan out their coursework but never had required them to reflect on their life and career goals,” Tarjan said. “Now in both semesters we have them think about their major and how that might help them achieve their life and career goals. We’ve also added the component of planning and reflection. This change is more coherent to student needs and is teaching them how to get involved and use the campus.”
The class also changed from credit or no credit to a letter grade.
“Most of the instructors felt very strongly that the credit or no credit was leading to students not taking the class seriously,” Tarjan said. “The students weren’t reaching the learning outcomes.”
While the changes to the CSUB First Year Seminar have been received well, some students see a year as being long for one class. Freshman biology premed major Grace Prall, 18, said she is learning much about the campus in the class but it shouldn’t take so long.
“A year long is not necessary because I feel its basic things you learn in the class,” she said. “Personally, aside from learning about the campus, I’ve learned most of it before. I feel like I’ve already been prepared.”
While the added 50 minutes has not affected Prall’s scheduling, she realized it could affect others in their first year of college. More could be packed in one semester, which she prefers over a year.
Freshman pre-nursing major Robert Mears, 18, and freshman kinesiology major Marcos Granado, 18, agree with Prall.
“Most topics students have been taught previously from high school,” Mears said. “I’m just being refreshed with what I already know.”
“The class is going to cover what the school has to offer and you can get that done in one semester,” Granado said.
Business Marketing major and senior Natalie Pinon, 22, recalled the time when she finished the class in one quarter. The class was originally called CSUB 101 and met for a longer time period.
“I did not learn much, actually,” she said. “We went over units and classes and how much you need to take and the different classes that are offered here. When I took that class a lot of work was done on modules so when we got to class we just had to have our finished paper completed.”
With regards to it now being two semesters, Pinon sees a year as too long for any class.
“Freshmen year is the hardest year for anybody, so taking a course that’s going to last a year anyway just buckles up a lot of time,” she said. “It’s an extra semester you could have taken something else. And if classes you are majoring in aren’t even a year long, why would a prerequisite class be a year long?”
