Click here to read an important update regarding IFS and how Indiana University Bloomington will be improving student success through the new first-year seminar.
Welcome to Intensive Freshman Seminars
IFS is a program offered by the Undergraduate Education Transition to College Office. It is one option for you to step into life at IU Bloomington before the fall semester even begins. With IFS, you will move into your dorm on campus early to work with leading faculty in a 3-credit course, create your first college friendships, immerse yourself in unique programming designed to connect you with IU's extensive resources, and prepare yourself for life at college.
IFS 2025 takes place from August 3rd to August 20th, right before the fall semester begins. The program begins with a week of virtual classes starting on August 3th. IFS students move to campus on August 10th, and in-person class meetings begin on August 11th.
Your success at IU begins here
At IFS, you'll have the opportunity to:
- Connect with a top professor
- Participate in a small and rigorous college class
- Learn alongside other incoming first-year students & create lasting friendships
- Explore the IU Bloomington campus
- Discover opportunities for leadership, service, and study
Connect with faculty
Learn from one of Indiana University's leading faculty members in a small classroom setting. Because IFS classes are small, students have the chance to work individually with their professor and make personal relationships with faculty. With classes in a variety of subjects and unique co-curricular opportunities, there's an IFS class for every type of student.
Create friendships
When you attend IFS, you aren't just academically successful, you're socially involved too. You will participate in a variety of activities and events while exploring campus and making friends with new and returning IU students. Meet other students before coming to campus at IFS virtual events and have a blast at our program-wide events. Experiences aren't limited to what happens in the classroom. At IFS, you'll never be bored.
2024 IFS Course Spotlights
See the full list of 2024 IFS courses to learn more and meet the IFS faculty. Once the 2025 courses have been published, identify your top four course preferences and submit your IFS application.
World Literature and Intellectual Traditions
Asaad Alsaleh
Dive into literature, philosophy, drama, theology, and poetry from the pre-modern world! In this class you will encounter different modes of thinking from across the world, with a focus on themes like free will and divine justice, power, religion, and more.
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Disrupting the Stage: Theatre as Embodied Social Activism
Gustave Weltsek
This course disrupts the idea that theatre is a passive spectator event, and allows students' diverse stories to come together through active, creative collaboration.
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Popular Music as a History Book: Latin America in the 20th Century
Sergio Ospina-Romero
This course offers both a historical and a musical journey through Latin America in the 20th century. From the sound recordings that accompanied the unfolding of the Mexican Revolution to the music of Post-revolutionary Cuba to the songs that denounced the ruthlessness of dictatorial regimes in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, the course will be an opportunity to learn history through music, and thus, to appreciate history in a whole new light.
Learn more