First Year Experience

Click here for Fall 2009 Information

First Year Experience (Printable Application)

Starting this fall semester 2008, the El Camino College Compton Center is offering a new and exciting program designed for students who are beginning their college careers at our campus. It is called First Year Experience (FYE). This program concentrates on the reading and writing skills that are so essential to success not only in college, but also throughout life.& The classes are linked together by a common theme. Because the students are taking the same courses and remain with the same group of students for the entire year, Learning Communities are developed.

Why should students sign up for First Year Experience?

The student success rate in classes taken after the First Year Experience Program was taken on the Torrance Campus averages 89%, as compared to a 74% success rate of students randomly taking these courses.

What Courses are Linked:

Learning Community A consists of English B (Introduction to the Composing Process), English 82 (Introduction to Reading Skills), Academic Strategies 20AB (Pre-writing), and Human Development 8 (Orientation to College and Educational Planning.) The theme that ties these classes together is the Individual and Cultural Identification.

Learning Community B consists of English A (Writing the College Essay), English 84 (Developmental Reading and Writing), Academic Strategies 36AB (Sentence Errors and Punctuation), Human Development 10 (Strategies for Success in College), and History 1A (US History to 1877). The theme that ties these classes together is Cultural Inheritance and Immigration in the Early American Experience

Students will continue in the Learning Communities throughout the Spring Semester. Each semester will have several field trips to places appropriate to the course content: the Museum of Tolerance, the Japanese-American Museum, the Huntington Library, the Chinese American Museum, the Museum of Latin-American Art, and the African-American History Museum.

Student Support:

Tutorial Assistance in the Writing Lab, Language Lab, and Learning Resource Center
In-class tutors for English classes.
Computer labs for grammar, reading, and writing
Weekly meetings with the First Year Experience counselor

How to sign up for the First Year Experience:

Step 1: Students fill out the application for the program and register on-line or in person as an El Camino College Compton Center student. In person applications can be completed in the Admissions & Records Office, located in the Administration Building. First Year Experience Program Applications are available in Counseling, Transfer Center, and in the First Year Experience Office located in D-31.

Step 2: Students take the English Placement Test in the Assessment Center (G-32)

Step 3: Students take your scores on the English Placement Test to the First Year-Experience Counselor, Mr. Efren Rangel, located in the Transfer Center (D-29). Mr. Efren Rangel will evaluate your scores and place you in the group of classes (Learning Community A or B) that is appropriate to the test scores and assign you a learning community.

The First Year Experience Program application deadline is, Wednesday, August 13, 2008. Mr. Efren Rangel will be available on the following Saturdays to assist students with their enrollment process in the Transfer Center, Room D-29.

Saturday Schedule	Time
August 2	10:00am-2:00pm
August 9	10:00am-2:00pm
August 16	10:00am-2:00pm

Students are encouraged to submit an application to this exciting program. Attached (above) is the First Year Experience Program Application. Please print and distribute to interested students. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me by phone at (310) 900-1600 ext.2233, email at twasserberger@elcamino.edu or you can always stop by and visit our office located in room D-31.

Sincerely,

Toni Wasserberger

Professor of English

First Year Experience Coordinator