First-year Experience
Reimagining First-year Orientation
USG has a real role to play in crafting first-year students’ orientation schedules and programming, one that we have not exercised enough. Currently, First-year Orientation is far too structured, inundating first-years with loads of events that are varying levels of engaging, informative, and even helpful. Orientation should be focused on teaching first-years the most important things about life at Princeton and allowing them to create meaningful connections with their classmates. Here’s how we can make that a reality:
Restructuring FYRE
Currently, FYRE events overload students’ schedules during their first semester at Princeton. At the same time, these events are often disorganized (with trainers running late), and forcing students to go turns RCAs into enforcers of University policy instead of confidants there to provide support for their Zees. Furthermore, making RCAs lead trainings on topics like financial literacy instead of University administrators prevents them from spending time building real relationships with first-years.
USG should work with the University to whittle down FYRE events to ensure they are truly essential to students and are being led by the right people. Orientation should center on necessary information about Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities (RRR) and PSAFE’s presence and role on campus, which have been de-emphasized in programming, ensuring that students are informed on key issues relating to their safety, health, and well-being while giving them space to experience Princeton in their own way.
Creating Connections
In the free time that students will be provided with after Orientation is restructured, USG and University administration should work on creating spaces for building real connections across students across different backgrounds, and creating unstructured time for Zees to grow closer with their RCAs. These spaces should highlight campus affinity groups, leadership opportunities, and key resources so students don’t fall behind once the semester picks up.
Fixing Club Admissions
One of the hardest things for students at Princeton to deal with during their first year is what seems like an endless stream of rejection from competitive clubs, societies, and classes. USG has worked with administrators recently on changing guidelines on club selectivity, but we should be taking a more expansive role in reforming the club recruitment and admissions process to increase transparency and support students facing rejection. Here’s how we can do that:
Increasing Transparency in Recruitment
USG should work with the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students (ODUS), a key partner in much of USG’s programming work, to restructure MyPrincetonU so that it provides a more comprehensive list of student organizations that includes their selectivity status, recruitment timelines, and application process.
As President, I would work with ODUS to ensure that selective clubs more clearly justify their decisions relating to acceptance or rejection of a student to the student themselves, so students learn something from the application process while building out a list of similar, non-selective organizations that students can join.
Emphasising Redirection
USG and ODUS should work together with club leaders to emphasize the many other opportunities available to Princeton students, many of which overlap with selective clubs, to provide spaces for all students to pursue their interests with others.
As President, I would work with ODUS and selective clubs to create processes for students to engage with similar organizations and emphasize the possibility of reapplication to selective groups during the next semester, unless the group only takes students from certain class years.
