Freshmen Academy

At USU Huntsman, we believe the world needs more Aggies, and take pride in developing the next generation of leaders, builders of nations, organizations, communities, and families. We want each student at the Huntsman School to feel welcome and wanted.

How do we create a sense of community, and imbue each student into the culture of Huntsman? Many students enter the business school with little understanding of what businesses do and how their selected major will lead to meaningful work. We have also felt an increased concern for the mental and emotional health of our students and understand now more than ever a need to help every new student feel like they belong.

As we have discussed ways to improve our student experience, increase graduation rates, and provide greater awareness and access to our outstanding clubs, centers, and extracurricular opportunities, we formed an idea to create a one-credit hour course for incoming freshmen, called the Freshmen Academy, to launch Fall Semester, 2023.

The Academy will help our incoming students explore who they are and learn about who we are in order to create a synergy that will help us fulfill our motto to dare mighty things. This course will focus on culture and belonging, provide small group interaction with peers and mentors, provide opportunities for reflective and integrative learning, expose students to the best faculty and professional instruction covering cutting edge topics like how to effectively utilize Chat GPT, how to become a leader through developing empathy, and what it means to engage in intentional learning. This course is designed to introduce students to the rigor and expectations of the university by developing their ability to ask questions, problem solve, and evaluate information.

The theme of this course is "Your Story." Each student will learn that they are the hero of their story, and that their peers and our highly talented faculty and staff will serve as their guides to overcome obstacles and setbacks. Student success is our highest priority, and we believe that dedicating more attention and resources to our students from their first day on campus will help them to more fully benefit from all that we have to offer and help them to understand their unique contribution to our community.

Freshman Academy Weekly Topics