Your First Year

First-Year Forum and The Course Project

The First-Year Forum (FYF) is where everything begins.

Through a combination of classroom study and workshops designed to help you think critically, collaboratively, and reflectively on your experiences, FYF is where you learn how to learn at Bennington.

Through FYF, you will:

• Build relationships with faculty and student leaders
• Learn how to access campus resources
• Engage with your group as a community of collaborators
• Explore the unfamiliar as part of your liberal arts education
• Understand and begin shaping your Plan, Bennington’s approach to self-directed education

At the center of FYF is your course project: a combination of research, reflection, and collaboration that brings your learning into practice.

Built-In Support from Day One

Support at Bennington isn’t something you seek out later. It’s built into how your first-year experience is structured.

Your FYF instructor is also your academic advisor, and each FYF section also includes a student co-leader, a senior who has already gone through the process and can offer perspective on both academic work and day-to-day life. 

Before the term begins, you’ll review a selection of First-Year Forum topics so that you have a chance to indicate your preferences. You’re then placed into a group based on those interests, giving you a starting point without requiring you to have everything figured out.

Learning Through Community

In FYF, your work doesn’t just stay in the classroom. In one recent project, students partnered with local schools through an initiative called Bennington Rising. Bennington students worked alongside high school on shared questions and projects. 

They met regularly, both on campus and online, as they developed ideas together, tested them, and built a final project that they could share.  

In A Chemical Exploration of “All Natural,” students explored how food products describe themselves as “natural.” They researched the science behind probiotics and prebiotics, creating art--posters and an animation--to explain what they found. The project was installed as a part of a public exhibition at the Bennington Museum. 

Others designed hands-on science lessons and delivered the lessons to elementary students, adapting in real-time while learning how to communicate clearly with a new audience. 

In another FYF, Drawing with Plants, students explored the Bennington campus through both art and biology. They kept field journals, sketched local plant life, and created their own inks from botanical materials they collected on campus. As they worked, they studied the ecology and biology of those plants, learning where materials come from and how they can be used.

Projects like these go beyond completing an assignment. They ask you to work across disciplines, collaborate with others, and apply what you’re learning in ways that matter beyond the classroom.

Building Self-Awareness, Skills, and Confidence

As your first year progresses, you begin to understand more than what you’re studying. You begin to really understand more about how you work. You fine-tune your understanding of what holds your attention, what challenges you, and what you want to try next. At Bennington, this is where your thinking about what comes next begins to take shape.

Through the Career Development & Field Work Term Office, you’ll work with advisors who help you build on what you’re already discovering in your courses and projects, helping you to connect your academic work to real-world possibilities.

• Career Exploration – Ongoing support with identifying career interests, building networks, and planning next steps after graduation.
• Field Work Term Search Planning – Support with identifying potential opportunities, developing effective search strategies, and gaining industry-specific insights.
• Application Material Review – One-on-one feedback on resumes, cover letters, portfolios, and other application materials.
• Interview Coaching – Mock interviews with constructive feedback and guidance on communicating skills, experiences, and goals with confidence.
• Post-Graduate Job Search Planning – Creating a focused and strategic roadmap aligned with each student’s values, interests, personality, and strengths.

Personalized Career Pathways and One-on-One Advising

You’ll meet with your advisor who will help you turn those early insights into next steps. Together, you will:

• Identify career and graduate school outcomes connected to each student’s academic emphasis areas
• Explore multiple career pathways and experiential learning opportunities aligned with evolving interests
• Connect classroom learning to real-world skills and professional experiences
• Develop a personalized action plan with concrete steps toward short-term milestones and long-term career goals

Over time, you build your Plan.