Optimal First Year — Thrive Through Your First Year, One Week at a Time

The Problem

"The first year asks you to find your feet in almost every part of life at once: new studies, new people, new money, new independence. Optimal First Year gives you one hopeful idea for the whole year: everything the course builds can be measured, and everything it measures can move. Week by week you build the habits and skills of a thriving student, and you see your own progress in numbers."

What you'll achieve

Outcomes you can expect

Read your own Check-In, PERMA+4 and Harvard Flourishing Index numbers move from the gauge week to mid-year and the final week
Map where help lives at your university, with the national 24-hour student lines already on the map
Meet five seniors' stories of arriving at university, write your own connections, and answer the belonging survey
Apply the year to your own life in one project and to something beyond yourself in another, and end with your own story of the year

The science behind it

What you'll learn

Surviving versus thriving, written goal-setting, grit and growth mindsets
How sleep, movement and food drive energy and learning
Strengths, connection, belonging, hope, optimism and positive emotions
Achievement, thinking skills, emotional intelligence, character and self-belief
Getting things done, personality, purpose, the upside of the dark side, procrastination and the inner life

What's included

Everything you get

23 modules with 338 interactive tools, in your own private FlourishIQ account
Eighteen tools written for this course, including My Optimal First Year Check-In, Where I Get Help: My Support Map and I Belong Here
Sixty narrated talks, one for every topic of the year, plus the opening talk Wellbeing Is Fitness
A reader, a Foundation Note and a ten-question quiz for every week
Fillable workbooks for every practice tool, for students who prefer to keep their writing on their own device
For institutions: a facilitator deck with a run-sheet for every tool, a participant deck, a Facilitator Guide and a talks deck

Who it's for

The right fit

Designed for For first-year students at any university or college who want a whole year of wellbeing and success, measured so they can watch it move; and for the universities, faculties, residences and student-success teams that give it to a first-year group, as a completion course or a credit-bearing module.

A self-paced wellbeing and success course for the whole of your first year. Twenty-six weeks run from a gauge week through twenty content weeks in two semesters, with two project fortnights and re-gauges at mid-year and at the end. Every week brings its own check-ins, practices from the FlourishIQ library, tools written for this course, a talk, a reader, a Foundation Note and a ten-question quiz. Universities and colleges also take it for a whole first-year group.

Common questions

FAQ

How is it offered?

To you as an individual, with a year's access at the price shown; and to universities and colleges for a whole first-year group, at a group price agreed with each institution. Either way every student works in their own FlourishIQ account.

Can it carry credit?

Yes. In the completion format a module is complete when its required tools are done and its quiz is saved. In the credit-bearing format, module completion, quiz marks and the two project accounts, marked against a published rubric, carry the credit. The university chooses; the tools are the same.

How long does it run?

Twenty-six weeks across the first year: a gauge week, ten content weeks, a project fortnight and mid-year re-gauge, ten more content weeks, and a final project fortnight and re-gauge. Students work at their own pace.

Can it be run in class?

Yes. The facilitator deck gives every module its through-line, its evidence and a slide, screenshot and run-sheet for every tool, with speaker notes; the talks deck carries the sixty talks. Mix a talk, the module's tools and time in students' own accounts.

Does it fit my university's own support services?

Yes. Where I Get Help: My Support Map is organised by need. The national 24-hour student lines are already on it, and you write in your own university's offices, from financial aid and counselling to the health service.

Who sees a student's answers?

Only the student. Every score is shown to the student as a number with its band and the movement since their last take, and the only comparison the course makes is each student against their earlier self.

Ready to begin?

A whole first year of wellbeing and success, one week at a time, measured so you can watch it move

R2,995 /year · Annual subscription — 12 months’ full access

Buy Now →

Try it free for 24 hours

The whole course for a day, no card needed. Whatever you write is kept if you buy. Trial terms

Buy any 3 courses and save 20% — mix & match your own bundle.

Not sure this is the one? Find the right course for you →

Secure payment by PayFast.