UMF’s innovative First Year Fusion (FYF) program combines your required First Year Seminar with a week-long pre-semester field program. During Fusion Week, students join an intellectual community that is closely mentored by faculty as they travel to various locations across Franklin County, the State of Maine, and this year even globally with a new Fusion program in Japan. Together students and faculty explore the theme of their FYF course through highly experiential activities, producing student-directed research and creative projects.

Participating in the Fusion program permits you to come to campus a week early, move into your room, meet friends, and set a foundation to succeed in college. After Orientation, your Fusion course resumes with the rest of your Fall classes. The intensive Fusion Week permits your FYF course to finish mid-semester, freeing you to focus on your remaining courses during the end-of-term crunch.

Each Fusion course in Maine has a course fee of $100 to cover course-related travel, food, lodging, and activities. The course fee is included with your Fall tuition and can be paid through financial aid and scholarship packages.

The Japan Global Fusion course has a course fee of $2,600 to cover all course-related fees, including international travel. Incoming students are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship to offset this fee in addition to any financial aid or scholarship packages they may have received. [this course is now filled]

Admission in all Fusion courses and the scholarship for the Japan course are based on a first-come/first-served basis.

SO APPLY TODAY!

Applications for Maine-Based Fusion Course

Applications for the Global Fusion Course & Scholarship

First Year Fusion classes are part of UMF’s Research Learning Experience (RLE) program designed to prepares students for academic success and future careers.

Here are the FYF courses that we are offering in 2023:


FYS 100 The Good Life [this course is now filled]

Linda Beck, UMF Dean of Global & Experiential Education and Political Science

Fusion Week I (Aug 11-17): Flagstaff Lake, Carrying Place Township, ME

In The Good Life course, you are invited to set aside time as you begin your undergraduate career at UMF to think about what may be the most important questions in life: What counts as a Good Life? How do I go about living that Good Life? What will be my great work for the good of all? During Fusion week, you will begin the course at a tranquil retreat on Flagstaff Lake run by Maine Huts and Trails. You will stay in cabins along the lake where you can calm your mind, and focus on what really matters. We’ll read inspiring texts that explore The Good Life and have meaningful conversations while spending time in nature, walking the trails, and canoeing the river. Throughout the semester, students will explore their values and visions of The Good Life, articulating it in a final project through a medium of their choosing. 

  • Spend time at a tranquil retreat on Flagstaff Lake

  • Enjoy nature while you contemplate what the Good Life means to you

  • Engage in meaningful conversations and develop important connections with classmates as you transition to the UMF community

Application for The Good Life & Other Maine-Based Fusion Courses


Urban Maine: The Stories and Sounds [this course is accepting applications]

Lewis Robinson, Creative Writing

Fusion Week II (August 21-23): Portland, ME

Maine is more than a pastoral vacationland. Cities like Portland, Augusta, and Belfast that continue to evolve and add new layers to their unique histories. During Fusion Week 2022, Urban Maine: The Stories and Sounds, students traveled to Portland where they explored one of Maine’s premier coastal cities and met with a wide variety of Maine city dwellers: from fishermen to artists, shopkeepers to chefs. During the fall semester, through their collaborative collection of individual narratives and soundscapes, they created their own work in the form of audio podcasts, sound collages and videos. Next year we plan to return to Portland to continue our exploration of this vibrant, ever-changing city and its diverse sites, sounds, and people. 

  • Explore the Coastal Maine cities of Portland and Belfast

  • Investigate how the dynamics of sounds shape place and experience

  • Learn how to record and produce audio

  • Craft powerful stories from the soundscapes you collect

  • Collaborate with your classmates as you explore Maine and join the UMF community

Yolanda Ares (’26): “I lived in a city, so for me that wasn’t much of a big difference. But the people we met and interviewed to capture their stories, that is what I truly took away from the experience… When you learn something new, as that stranger becomes a friend in that moment, them telling you their story really impacts you.”

Application for Urban Maine & Other Maine-Based Fusion Courses


NEW: Japan Through Time and Space [this course is now filled]

Sarah Maline, Visual Arts

Global Fusion Week (July 30 – Aug 10, 2023): Tokyo, Akita, and Kyoto

Almost 400 years ago, the great poet-monk-traveler Matsuo Bashô wrote that “every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” Through the Japan Global Fusion course, your UMF journey will begin with a pre-semester trip to Japan where you explore many of the unique places and spaces Bashô encountered in his journeys. We first visit Tokyo, the global city of light, movement and futuristic fantasy where we immerse ourselves in Japanese culture, history and food. We then travel to the far north of Japan’s Honshu island to explore Akita with Japanese university students and faculty from UMF’s sister school, Akita International University. We will arrive in time to experience the Kantô Matsuri harvest festival, visit an active local farm, and meet the legendary local Namahage demons who try to scare the laziness out of children and adults alike. We then travel to the ancient Japanese capital of Kyôto, exploring its narrow streets and temple paths to discover the places of old that still exist within this modern city. We will then take Japan’s famous bullet train back to Tokyo where we catch our flight back home and then regroup in the fall to continue our discussion with our Akita counterparts through a Virtual Global Experience (VGE). 

During the trip, we will build our own individual tabi nikki, or travel diaries, drawing inspiration from historical artworks, the diaries of historical Japanese travelers and our own experiences through writing, photography, video and sound recording, and even drawing or painting—whatever processes you want to use to document your time in Japan. When we return to UMF, we will work together to create a group diary project to synthesize our experiences and share them with the campus and local community. Through a project-based VGE with our friends and colleagues from Akita, we will analyze how our expectations and memories of the places we visited activate and/or alter our understanding of those places, and how places build and hold meaning through space and time.

There is a course fee of $2,600 for the Japan Global Fusion course that covers all course-related travel, airfare, most food, lodging, and activities.

To apply for a $1,000 scholarship to offset the course fee, please complete this course and scholarship application. To be admitted into the program and receive a scholarship, you must also ask a high school teacher, counselor, mentor, or early college professor to fill out this academic reference form. For more information, visit our Global First Year Fusion webpage. 

UMF Experiential Ed Home Page

Office of Experiential & Global Education
University of Maine at Farmington
106 Fusion Space
117 South Street
Farmington, Maine 04938
UMFGlobalEd@maine.edu