Planning Your First Year

Everything about your first year at W&J College is designed to forge the foundation you need to thrive here. Let's dream big about where you want to go four years from now so that, together, we can craft the best possible first year for you on your way there. From the moment you join the W&J College community, our mission is to create room for your passions, present the appropriate challenges to sharpen those passions and provide the support you need to achieve more than you might imagine.

Before you arrive, we will handcraft a schedule based on your interests, make residence assignments, and select the best mentors to help you build the bridges to where you're headed. Planning your first year is so much more than a packing list (but you'll get one of those, too!)

EXPLORE HOUSING

Explore Dining

Explore Academics

Orientation is a Process

From the Forge Your Foundation orientation to transition-to-college activities on campus throughout the first year, you'll have many opportunities to engage in campus traditions for the first time and create life-long relationships with faculty, peers, and mentors.

Explore Student Activities

First Year Seminar

Matching your interests with a faculty advisor and like-minded peers who live and learn with you, your first-year seminar orients you to the liberal arts tradition at W&J College through thoughtful discussion that will pique your intellectual curiosity.

First Year Seminar

First Year Experience FAQs

When does the First Year Experience start?

Your first-year experience at W&J College begins before you arrive with the Gateway program. The Gateway program helps guide your transition from high school. Online access to forms, key dates and deadlines, information about housing, moving, dining, services on campus, courses and placement, orientation, and athletics, Gateway provides entry into all things W&J College before you arrive.

While you get to know us, we get to know you, too. As we learn more about you, we prepare your welcome to campus and your first semester. We'll create your schedule, make housing assignments, identify your mentors, and champion your dreams for your time at W&J College.

Do you hold events or activites before school starts?

You're included in two events before school starts: Gear Up and Forge Your Foundation.

During Gear Up, the incoming first-year class and their families meet for the day on campus. You will meet your peers in your year, meet faculty, become familiar with campus, learn about student organizations and activities, and, well, gear up to come to W&J College!

Forge Your Foundation is your immersive orientation weekend. Held before the semester begins, Forge Your Foundation helps you transition to W&J College with a series of events and programs to get you acquainted with everyone and everything on campus. Like Gear Up, you'll have opportunities to connect with faculty and peers and learn more about resources and services on campus. You'll also hear about our community values, our history, and learn some lingo. It's our way of welcoming you into W&J College family and giving you a strong foundation to build on.

I have no idea what I want to be, let alone major in - is that OK?

Yes! The first year gives you time to explore, experiment, challenge yourself, and take intellectual risks. You'll find an endless source of opportunities to explore and discover new passions. Maybe your First Year Seminar experience will set you on a path. Or, meeting a faculty mentor will inspire an interest in a field of study. Talking with any of your mentors can lead you to new possibilities or reveal ways to reconsider old ones. A student club might take you deeper in a direction you already love. Even if you do know what you want to be, there's room to dream new ways to do it, to chart a course unique to you.

Do you have any materials that can help me to prepare for my first year ?

We do! All our transition programs provide materials to help you prepare for your first year. Over the summer, the Gateway program provides information about key dates and deadlines, information about housing, moving, dining, services on campus, courses and placement, orientation, and athletics.

In the summer you'll also receive a copy of The Insider Guide. The Insider Guide helps you navigate W&J College like an insider. You'll learn about our community values, our campus, our traditions (DUBJAM, Spoon of Knowledge, and Feel Good Fridays), our lingo (PrezGuide, PrezPoint, dubjay), and what it means to be a President.

How many First Year Seminar Courses are offered?

What kind of mentors will I meet?

You'll have a team of mentors who can support and guide you for your first year, and all four years. Your First Year Seminar professor will be your faculty advisor. You'll also have a Student Success Consultant who helps you plan your first year. You'll meet by phone in August and meet with them several times in your first year to plan your W&J College career and look ahead to where you want to be in four years. You'll have an alumni mentor, a LINK mentor, who can help you connect to the wider W&J College network and give advice and support for your W&J College experience. Finally, an upper-class mentor provides peer support and a student perspective from someone who's recently walked the path you're walking.

What's the First Year Experience like for non-residential students?

I'm a transfer student. Will you provide mentoring and advising for me as well?

First Year Experience