FYO topics tap into faculty research and personalities
FYO topics tap into faculty research and personalities
Grady College faculty are continuously looking for opportunities to share their interests and research with students, and there are few examples as evident as the First Year Odyssey seminars.
FYO seminars at Grady College range from courses about how science is portrayed in mass media and working with virtual reality, to an overview of film festivals and how Shonda Rhimes television shows relate to everyday life. Even Grady College’s Dean, Charles Davis, teaches an FYO called “Great First Amendment Debates: The Legacy of Freedom of Expression,” focusing on his research expertise as a First Amendment scholar.
“I love the FYO system,” says Kyser Lough, who instructs an FYO seminar called “Music, Media, and Athens: Documenting and Critiquing the City’s Culture Through Music Journalism.”
“I appreciate the flexibility and freedom of the FYO model, and it is a great way to introduce students to all aspects of UGA and the research arm of the university.”
Michael Cacciatore, an associate professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, who teaches “Media Representations of Science: From Horror to Humor (And Everything In Between),” says he values the opportunity to relate to students and have conversations on a more casual basis.
“The FYO seminars are fantastic,” Cacciatore says. “I think it breaks down barriers, and I get to stay current with pop culture.”
The FYO seminars started in 2011 as an opportunity to introduce first-year students to smaller class sizes of 15 to 18 students, providing an opportunity to get to know faculty on a more individual basis and introduce them to the culture of the university. Students are encouraged to take seminars outside their major and can select any topic they are interested in and that fits into their schedule.
More than 400 seminars are offered throughout campus, and in Fall 2025, more than a dozen classes were offered through Grady College.
Experiential learning through local events
Lough, an associate professor of journalism at Grady College, has been teaching the “Music, Media, and Athens” FYO seminar for three years. When envisioning his class, Lough tapped into his research expertise of photojournalism and his passion of photographing concerts to create a seminar that studies music reviews, music business and performance. His goal is to explore what music means in culture and how to articulate that in words and visuals.
Lough said his students have a broad range of music taste and exposure, ranging from those who have never been to a concert to students planning to major in music journalism.
“The only requirement is that students just have to like music,” Lough says.
Two years ago, Lough reimagined his seminar to include Porchfest, the music celebration in Athens, Georgia, where residents invite bands to perform on their front porches. More than 200 bands participated in this year’s festival which took place Oct. 19. Students were assigned to research the bands and curate special tours, which included topics like Middle Aged Dad Vibes and ColorWalk (bands with colors in their names.) Students were divided into groups the day of Porchfest and were assigned to create a social media post chronicling the event.
Lough likes the broad range of music on display at Porchfest, which ranges from bands that tour regularly, to those that play once a year. The event also provides a great experiential learning opportunity.
“I love Porchfest because of how it reflects the present day Athens music scene,” Lough says. “Porchfest shows what music means to Athens.”
Lough, who served as a Special Collections Libraries Fellow in 2021, includes a visit to the UGA Special Collections Libraries where his students explore the vast music archives. He also invites special guests like a music photographer and Terry College of Business faculty and staff to provide an overview of the Music Business Certificate.
Keeping in contact with former students is a benefit of the FYO seminar, as well. Lough invites former students to have lunch with his current students before Porchfest to catch up and provide insight to current students. Despite the fact that students take classes from a wide variety of majors, Lough has had a former FYO student start her own music publication, another student who partnered with him for a Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO) project, and one who participated in his Travel Writing in Prague study away.
“It’s really refreshing to get a ‘first days on campus freshman,’” concludes Lough. “It’s a reminder of the excitement and spark of starting college. It’s so revitalizing. And, I end up seeing them more since they are here for four years.”
Exploring FYO through entertainment
Connecting with students about topics in which they can relate is one of the goals of the FYO seminars, and frequently this means exploring media and entertainment.
Examples include Nate Kohn’s FYO seminar which he has taught multiple times and studies film festivals around the world. Kohn has been the director of Roger Ebert’s Film Festival for more than 20 years and oversees the Cannes Film Festival study away program at Grady College. He encourages students to connect over their interest in film.
“The students come from all over, which is one of the challenges,” Kohn, a professor in Entertainment and Media Studies (EMST), says. “They don’t know each other and they are new and nervous. I just want to get them talking.”
Booker T. Mattison, an associate professor in EMST and director of several film projects on Tubi, attempts to connect with his FYO students over short films.
“It’s a great way to communicate the basic principles of life using short films as a talking point,” Mattison says.
Mattison covers basic film analysis — plot, complications, characters —but also tries to use films as a jumping off point to spark deeper conversations like determining which characters are human and which are not, or who deserves empathy and who does not.
“The conversations are fascinating and intriguing,” Mattison says. “It contributes to a different kind of discussion because it brings together students from different disciplines.”
“This seminar tries to balance practice of critical thinking and relevance, while at the same time it says ‘welcome to college while the students begin to acclimate,’” says Bernabo, an assistant professor in EMST.
Connecting everyday life with entertainment is also a theme of Laurena Bernabo’s “Adventures in Shondaland” seminar. The seminar studies the TV shows of Shonda Rhimes, including “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal” and “Bridgerton,” among others.
Bernabo appreciates that this is an easy entry point for students since many of these shows, like “Grey’s Anatomy,” have been on the air as long as the students have been alive. Bernabo’s class looks at themes of the shows and how they have changed over time, like how issues of gender and race have evolved, the normalizing of queer characters and the portrayal of violence against women. Bernabo addresses these themes not by dense readings, but by inviting guests into her classroom like someone from the women’s shelter to talk about how to be aware, how people can track others on their phones and how gender violence can creep into your lives.
“What I hope students will get out class is a motivation to try new things and a tendency to crucially evaluate the media they consume,” concluded Bernabo.
A complete list of FYO seminars offered through Grady College include:
- Adventures in Shondaland — Laurena Bernabo
- Bollywood: Film, Narrative, Culture — Andy Kavoori
- Deception in Politics How Politicians Dupe Voters and How You Can’t Catch Them — David Clementson
- Digital Media and Health — Jeong-Yeob Han
- Film Festivals – Nate Kohn
- Film Production: From the Silver Screen to Smartphones — Lauren Musgrove
- Great First Amendment Debates: The Legacy of Freedom of Expression — Charles Davis
- Heroes or Villains? The representation of journalists in K-Dramas — Karin Assmann
- Immersive Realities — Shira Chess
- Law and Politics in the Cinema: Great Legal and Political Movies — Joe Watson
- Let’s Talk About Melodramas: Telenovelas and Turkish Series — Carolina Acosta-Alzuru
- Media Representations of Science: From Horror to Humor (And Everything In Between) — Michael Cacciatore
- Music, Media, and Athens: Documenting and Critiquing the City’s Culture Through Music Journalism — Kyser Lough
- POP TV: Television and Popular Culture — Neil Landau
- Public Relations, Community Engagement and Service Learning — Juan Meng
- The Short Film: A Lens on the Human Experience — Booker T. Mattison
Author: Sarah E. Freeman, freemans@uga.edu