New Undergraduate Student Orientation

Are you an artist? Do you want to be? This interdisciplinary Pre-Orientation offers a variety of workshops and fun-filled artistic activities, designed to stimulate your creativity. Meet fellow new students and current Brandeisians that are passionate about art, and gain insight into Brandeis’ many creative opportunities. Connect, collaborate, create, and gain confidence in your self-expression. 

The Brandeis Arts Experience Pre-Orientation will include elements of photography, film, studio/visual arts, dance, theatre, writing, music, and more! This two-day adventure can be whatever you make of it and welcomes out-of-the-box interests. This Pre-Orientation will culminate in a showcase where you will work with fellow participants on a project or performance, focused on one or more disciplines.

Take a moment to spend some time focusing on yourself before everyone else arrives on campus! In this pre-orientation program we will spend our time learning, development, and honing some skills and mindsets that I wish I had practiced more before my first semester at Brandeis, in a fun, constructive, and safe environment.

Social media is a ubiquitous presence in our lives. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat, and more represent different ways of engaging with others and the world around us. Through an interdisciplinary series of discussions, we will dive into the great benefits of social media - connection, activism, entertainment - and the concerns that arise from it as well - including questions about privacy, misinformation, and identity. Students will engage with different academic areas, discuss and debate pros and cons, and have an opportunity to engage and collaborate with social media together in a uniquely Brandeisian way.

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 actively 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 the city of Waltham through the lens of community engagement, social justice, and local activism, while building relationships with prominent student leaders, faculty 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.

How can we be the change that we want to see in the world? Join our Social Justice Pre-Orientation program where you will get a chance to learn and apply social justice learning and theory while also starting and building meaningful relationships with peers of different and/or similar backgrounds. With faculty, staff, student, and community members support, we will explore the following questions: What does social justice look like at Brandeis? How can I apply social justice to my academics, personal life, and life outside of Brandeis? In addition, you will have a chance to develop your own self-awareness and identity around the topic of social justice and be able to build a slew of resources and tools to engage effectively on and off campus with a social justice lens. This Pre-Orientation continues our collective efforts in bringing change to our campus and our world.

Join us to learn about how to live sustainably on campus, brush up your knowledge of environmental impacts and climate change, take a field trip to visit where our campus organic waste gets composted, and take a sustainability-oriented tour of campus. You’ll also get an exclusive look at our dining hall kitchens to see how our food waste reduction system works, and you will enjoy a private, in-person cooking demonstration and tasting with a campus chef, showcasing one of our innovative plant-based dishes. (Some activities are weather-dependent and alternatives may be substituted.)

Starting college is exciting, but it is also a big transition full of new experiences and challenges! RISE is a pre-orientation program for students who would benefit from learning skills to help them thrive in college, supporting their mental wellbeing and academic success.

This program is primarily designed for students who have previously experienced depression and/or anxiety. We will focus on skills for coping with and bouncing back from stress, and strategies for preventing stress by using effective study, test taking, time management and goal setting techniques. We will also work on strategies to navigate the social side of college life, connect with resources throughout the university, and develop strategies to support your own wellbeing.

Friday and Saturday evening we’ll have fun, relaxing activities including crafts and games, ice cream, and exploring your new home of Waltham.

Students will work in small groups with faculty and clinicians from the counseling center. Learning is primarily experiential with discussions and hands on opportunities to practice skills.

Unique to this program, students can also choose to enroll in a Health, Wellness and Life Skills course (HWL 67) to continue practicing these skills and learning new skills throughout the semester.

Incoming first year students have priority, but space permitting we also welcome second year students, especially those who didn’t get to have an in-person experience last year.

→Apply here!

This Pre-Orientation program 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. Candidates will be selected by their demonstrated commitment to and interest in queer issues and futures. Priority will be given to first-year students, but second-year students may be admitted if there is room in the program.

→Apply here!