Welcome!
This FYS Resource collection was designed for instructors teaching First Year Seminar-like courses to high school students in NYC Public Schools. It includes a broad range of activities that promote college and career readiness skills for use in the classroom.
Brought to you by the Teaching & Learning Team at the CUNY Office of K-16 Initiatives.
FYS Topics
Academic Skills
Academic skills encompass the abilities needed for effective learning and success in educational settings, including reading, writing, critical thinking, and research.
Career Readiness
Career readiness skills are the essential abilities and knowledge required for success in the workplace, including practicing professional communication, building financial literacy, and exploring possible career pathways.
College Knowledge
College Knowledge consists of the information and skills required to navigate the college experience and successfully transition to college. This includes understanding the expectations of college, finding your fit, steps in applying and financial aid.
SEL Skills
SEL skills include understanding and managing emotions, goal-setting, making thoughtful decisions, and building relationship skills. SEL also promotes a growth mindset, stress management, self-care, and self-advocacy—key for self-directed learning and career development.
Study Skills
Study skills encompass techniques and strategies that aid in the efficient and effective learning and retention of information, including managing time, note-taking, and reflecting on both the product and process.
Active Learning Resources
Use the protocols and activities collected here to structure student discussion and engagement with text, image and video resources not already paired with an activity. Also included is a collection of ice breakers and team-building activities.
Digital Tools and CUNY Resources
Browse this collection to discover digital tools that support student engagement as well as a variety of resources available to CUNY instructors.
Select OER Textbooks
The following textbooks are open-education resources that address the topics discussed on this site. You will see chapters and sections pulled out and linked to as readings on individual skill pages throughout this site. We recommend these textbooks as a great place to start if you want engage deeply with any of these topics or find additional readings and resources beyond what is collected here.
- From High School to the Real World: College + Career Prep 101
- BCC FYS Curriculum Revised
- Blueprint for Success in College and Career
- LaGCC OER Textbook
This is an Open Educational Resource
Everyone who has contributed to this site has agreed to share their work under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED). As per that license, you are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
Under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
- ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
