Tips for Getting Students to Enroll in Your Seminar
Titles Make a Difference
Seminars with higher enrollments tend to have either
- a title that conveys quite clearly the topic of the seminar, or
- is so interesting as to pique the curiosity of the student.
Example of a clear title: "Foreign Eyes on the USA: How the World's Media Cover Us."
Example of a title that piques curiosity: "CSI Knoxville, 1863."
This latter title suggests another strategy to boost enrollment, which is to refer to something prominent in the students' world today--such as a hit television show, to then present your seminar topic (which in this case is an examination of Civil War battlefields in Knoxville). Perhaps putting it in the negative is best here: titles that do not convey clearly the topic of the seminar, or which are not exciting, or which do not patch into the world of our freshmen, draw less student interest. A hypothetical example of using popular culture to present a topic is "Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan: What's Up with Them?" This could be a seminar, say, on fame and youth, or on drug abuse, or on adolescents and adolescent behavior, but the "hook" is a reference to popular culture.
Believe it or Not, Professor Biographies Make a Difference
What we have noticed in the last year is that seminars with long, impressive professor biographies tend to draw fewer enrollees. Perhaps students are intimidated by these entries. Shorter, straight to the point biographies seem to work better…along the lines of “Professor Smith teaches nuclear physics at Tennessee and has taught freshmen physics courses since 2001.”
Students Are Not Familiar with Most Academic Paradigms and Language
Course titles and especially course descriptions that are written in the specialized language of a scholarly field do not attract students. Remember, these students are teenagers. They are recent high school graduates. Four years ago they were fourteen and freshmen in high school. They are unlikely to understand, or be initially attracted to, seminar titles and descriptions written in the narrow language of a scholarly field or intellectual current within a field (Postmodernism, for example). If presented in accessible language they may become interested, say, in postmodernism, but the title and description should be written in a style that students understand at this stage of their education.
Reach Out to Students
If you are in a more specialized field, reach out to students with other interests by tying your field to larger issues, concerns, trends, and the like. "Why Buildings Stand Up," taught by an engineer, has a clear title, and its description is accessible to students who are not planning to become engineers, and as such has drawn considerable interest. Nevertheless, feel free to offer a seminar of interest mainly to students in your discipline, but make sure to explain that the course is primarily for students in this area, and to explain how the information in the seminar will be helpful for their education. Finally, clearly tell students what something is, and why they should study it. Thus, if learning backgammon is helpful to succeed in "x" fields, explain how and why. Or, if learning backgammon is simply fun to do, and will return great pleasure to students, then say so in the seminar description.
Feel Free to Talk With Us
Todd Diacon and Linda Broyles will gladly offer advice on titles, descriptions, and seminar topics.
A Final Note
The time of day and the day of the week do not seem to be key variables in determining student interest in seminars. KEY EXCEPTION: 8am or 9am seminars. Also, please remember that classrooms are hardest to schedule between 9am and 2pm.
