The First-Year Seminar Requirement

You must have completed two seminars in your first year (with the exception of students in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences which need to have completed only a single seminar in either winter or spring of their first year). 

About First-Year Seminars

First-Year Seminars are small, discussion-oriented classes in which you explored a single topic or theme. First-year seminars do not count toward Weinberg College’s distribution requirements, and most departments and programs exclude them from counting toward major and minor requirements.

Rules for Fulfilling the Requirement

Grades

You must earn a grade of at least D in your first-year seminars in order to count them toward the seminar requirement. If you are not able to complete two seminars with at least Ds during your first year, meet with your Weinberg College Adviser to discuss how to fulfill this requirement. If you are enrolled for the entire first year as a Weinberg student and fail to complete the seminar requirement, you will be required to fulfill it in other ways in your remaining time at Northwestern. If you interschool transfer out of Weinberg in your first year without completing both seminars and then return to Weinberg, you will need a substitute for the missing seminar(s). You will NOT, however, be permitted to register for a seminar after your first year.

Exceptions for Some Students

Students who transfer into Weinberg College from another school at Northwestern or from another institution have different ways of satisfying the seminar requirement. If you fall into this category, learn about how to fulfill your first-year seminar requirement after transferring into Weinberg