The sophomore seminar is the second component of Shared Passages and comes at a critical moment of challenge and opportunity in students’ journeys through the K-Plan. For most K sophomores, Study Abroad/Away is on the horizon, and all are declaring majors—two important factors in shaping an academic and personal identity, both of them exciting and intimidating prospects. College is no longer a brave new world, and the first year may have disrupted long-held goals, values, belief systems, and self-concepts, with no immediate promise of replacement. The sophomore year runs the danger of being a season in limbo—after something and before something else. The sophomore seminars offer a remarkable opportunity to bring focus to the year and shape the way students develop as learners. The sophomore seminars provide a vital and much-needed link between students’ entry to the K experience and their other landmark K experiences—study abroad and an intense senior year involving a SIP, advanced work in the major, and a senior Shared Passages seminar.