Undergraduate First Year Experience

Join Brandeis Hillel student leaders and staff for the Hillel First Year Retreat from Friday, August 21 to Sunday, August 23 at Brandeis University during Pre-Orientation.

The First Year Retreat is a great opportunity to connect with new friends and to learn about Jewish life at Brandeis while enjoying a beautiful Shabbat together. The program includes fun activities (including an off-campus excursion after Shabbat ends on Saturday night!), spirited services, engaging Jewish learning, delicious kosher meals, and more.

If you have questions about the retreat, please email hillel@brandeis.edu

Were you involved in community service in high school? Are you hoping to grow as a leader? Do you want to engage in the Brandeis and Waltham communities? Join other actively engaged peers in discovering how service can become part of your identity at Brandeis, while gaining the tools you need to become a leader in your new community.

Participants will engage in community service, discover and reflect on the diverse populations, perspectives, and roles that exist in the Waltham and greater Boston communities; develop leadership skills; and become part of a community committed to personal growth through service and reflection.

Students will explore service through the lens of community engagement, social justice, and local activism, while building relationships with prominent Brandeis community members and community partners who are actively engaged in this work. Participants will leave the program with the connections, skills, and knowledge to jump into service at Brandeis and have a positive impact on their new community.

Queer Academics and Activism (QAA) will offer first-year students a thought-provoking examination of the many dimensions of queer lives and experiences in the United States: the history of struggles around LGBTQIA+ rights, the development of queer activism, the intersections of queerness with questions of race, class, gender, and other vectors of oppression, and how scholars have theorized these realities.

Students will have the opportunity to learn from renowned faculty members in the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis as well as to hear about queer life and resources on campus. Through lectures, workshops, panel discussions, and seminar-style discussions, students will be introduced to an intersectional approach to queer theory and queer studies, and the relationship between queer studies and queer activism. In the process, students will learn about opportunities to contribute to queer community progress and forge memorable, lasting friendships in a safe space for personal growth through a well-rounded understanding of their place in history.

Welcome to Brandeis! Are you wondering where your Brandeis journey might lead? The new Center for Careers and Applied Liberal Arts is here to help you connect your majors, minors, and extracurricular activities to real-world career pathways.

In this program, you’ll get an early start exploring Brandeis’s innovative career resources. You’ll build foundational networking skills, learn the importance of meaningful connections, and begin creating a personalized career action plan for your first year. Along the way, you’ll gain insight into microcredentials, experiential learning opportunities, the 2nd transcript, and the emerging role of agentic AI in careers—all while becoming more familiar with Brandeis.

Are you wondering how you’re going to balance the demands of college? Join us for the Wellness Wayfinding: A Holistic Start to College Pre-O, where you will have the opportunity to make social connections with your peers and participate in activities that will help you learn how to balance the physical, mental, social, and spiritual dimensions of your college experience. Staff from Health and Wellness Promotion, Fitness & Recreation, Spiritual Life, Dining, Dean of Students Office, Health Center and Counseling Center will be collaborating to provide you with a well-rounded experience that will help prepare you for your Brandeis journey!