The First-Year Experience is the foundational liberal education core of the first-year curriculum at the Catholic University of America, bringing first-year students together in small Learning Communities for a shared, yearlong experience. Within Learning Communities, students take a sequence of four core classes in Philosophy, Theology, and English. The FYE also goes beyond the classroom with service learning activities, class-based excursions into Washington, D.C., and one-on-one academic advising.

The FYE is inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition and guided by the principles of liberal education. The first-year curriculum prepares students not only for the challenges of citizenship and morality, but also for all subsequent academic work in the major of their choice. In FYE classes, students learn to think more rigorously, write more persuasively, and read more perceptively, while confronting the great questions that have shaped human history and that continue to challenge us today. Tools and skills acquired in these classes become the foundation for work in their major and beyond.