A key curricular learning experience for me during my Freshman year at the University of Washington was being a part of a First-Year Interest Group (FIG; GEN ST 199 E8). For their first quarter at UW, Freshman are given the opportunity to join a First-Year Interest Group which enables them to start building connections with other Freshman because the people in your FIG take the same courses as you do. The First-Year Interest Group that I joined was centered on pre-health courses because my intended major at the time was Pre-Nursing. As a student in my First-Year Interest Group, I learned how to be successful at UW, I built relationships with my peers, and it also helped me make the decision to change my major from Pre-Nursing to Biology (Physiology). This curricular experience was valuable to me because it taught me about self-understanding, productive relationships, inclusion, and goals.

My participation in my First-Year Interest Group is significant to me because it helped me with my transition from highschool to attending the University of Washington. During my Freshman year at the University of Washington, I commuted from home. From my older sister’s experience, I knew that commuters had a difficult time developing their community. Therefore, in order to make this process easier for me I decided to join a FIG. Feeling like you belong in a community is always a nice feeling and my FIG helped fulfill this need for me. Furthermore, by joining this Pre-Health FIG it made me realize that Pre-Nursing was not the track that I wanted to go on. I began to see that the Pre-Nursing track was very narrow and if I wanted to expand my options in the future, I would not have very many options to choose from if I continued with the Pre-Nursing path. However, the courses that were incorporated with this Pre-Health FIG still motivated me to continue on the pre-health route.

• Attended peer-guided courses with my FIG group
• Found resources that would help my transition to UW be more successful
• Examined my personal values and identities
• Explored my academic career path for my four years at UW and developed a plan
• Developed meaningful relationships with my FIG peers and FIG leader

Self-Understanding

I always knew my altruistic personality would want a career that involves helping people. In addition, working in a hospital has always intrigued me and learning about medicine has always been a topic of interest to me. Therefore, I knew that I personally wanted to be in a Pre-Health major coming into UW. However, I did have an internal struggle with choosing which health career I wanted to follow and impulsively chose Nursing because I figured it would be a straightforward and linear path. I was correct on how straightforward it was, but did not realize how narrow the path was until I joined my FIG class. Understanding that I needed to have a pre-health major that would give me more options was very enlightening.

Productive Relationships

One of the main purposes of the FIG program is to allow Freshman the ability to cultivate relationships with one another. By meeting weekly for our FIG class and taking the same courses together, I was able to build relationships with many of my FIG peers. We all had a common interest in Pre-Health which allowed us to bond with one another and support each other in the classes we took together. As a result, developing relationships with this group was easy for me and we were all willing to share our experiences and encouraged one another with all of our FIG group projects.

Inclusion

My FIG leader made sure that everyone in our group felt welcomed and included. I looked up to my FIG leader and was influenced by her to continue this inclusion with my FIG peers outside of our FIG class. Therefore, if I noticed someone in my FIG class sitting alone in one of our other classes that we took together as a group, I would sit with them. Furthermore, I remember having a discussion in my FIG class that involved talking about everyone’s identities. I thought this activity was beneficial for me because it made me see who I shared identities with and who I didn’t. By doing observing this, I was able to make sure I found other ways to connect with the people I didn’t share any identities with in order to maintain that welcoming environment with the group.

Goals

Setting goals is something that I have always done, but my FIG class taught me the importance of setting tangible goals in a university setting. One of our assignments was to build our Winter and Spring Quarter schedules that year in order to make sure that we were fulfilling general requirements along with pre-requisites for our intended majors (our goal was to make sure that we were on track to apply to our majors). I have continued to use this mindset of setting tangible goals throughout my college career and it has helped immensely with my motivation.

Follow-through

Most of the assignments for the FIG class involved being in groups, but there were a couple assignments that I had to do individually. The individual assignments for the FIG class were pretty straight forward, but there were times where I had to choose how to complete the assignment by myself. For instance, the “Projecting Forward” assignment required me to interview a UW alumni who would be able to give me insights on how to enhance my husky experience. For this assignment, we were not allowed to interview a family member and we also had to attend the FYP Projecting Forward Alumni Event. At this time, I was still commuting from home and the FYP Projecting Forward Alumni Event was happening during the evening which was the time I commute home. Due to my commuting circumstances, I knew that it would be difficult for me to complete this assignment. However, I always see assignments to the end despite obstacles and thus, I asked my FIG leader if it would be okay for me to interview my sister who was attending UW as a Junior at the time. My FIG leader trusted me and gave me this exception due to my circumstances and I was able to complete the assignment. This experience has showed me that I am able to follow-through on tasks no matter the circumstances I find myself in.

My experience with the First-Year Interest Group program at the University of Washington has helped with my personal growth because it enabled me to reflect on myself and provided me with more options/opportunities for my future in the health career field. I have used my leadership competencies of self-understanding and goals when it comes to working towards my Bachelor’s of Science degree in Biology (Physiology) and minor in Diversity. Meanwhile, I have used my leadership competencies of productive relationships and inclusion in my roles as a Resident Adviser and Meeting Services Assistant. In regards to the future, I think that the lessons that I have learned from this experience will help me be better at navigating future opportunities that come my way.