Are you ready for this? No trip you’ve ever taken may be as important as the one you’re about to begin – and our New Student Orientation program is the ideal way to get things started off right.
You’ll get an in-person, upfront look at life on campus – academic buildings, social and activity centers, dining and residence halls, and favorite hangouts. You’ll meet with your academic advisor(s), register for classes at the earliest possible time, arrange for your books, and pick up your Barry ID and parking decal if needed. And you can learn about financial aid opportunities and complete any required placement or challenge testing.
Best of all – you’ll meet lots of new classmates, so you’re not a stranger when you arrive. And together, you’ll have a blast at the social events we have planned for you.
Orientation attendance is mandatory for freshman students who have earned fewer than 12 college credits, and strongly recommended for transfer students with fewer than 30 college credits.
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Living a Barry Life starts here, and now. Freshmen Experience Day gives our incoming first-year students a chance to learn about the inclusive philosophy, strong traditions and significant experiences that form the essence of the Barry Life.
It’s a day dedicated to common involvement activities, mission-centered and community service programs, and reflective workshops. You’ll engage in self-discovery experiences as well as collaborative team events. When it’s all over, you’ll know what it means to be a Buccaneer and to embrace the Barry motto: Learn, Reflect, and Serve! With that as your foundation, all good things can happen.
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How to be in this together, together. Jumpstart your connections to the greater Barry community and to a network of others who share your specific interests by joining a Learning Community. A joint effort between our academic programs, Housing and Residence Life, and the Center for Student Involvement, Barry’s learning communities offer you a vital opportunity to enhance your educational experience, expand your knowledge base, and build professional skills within your degree program.
They also help ensure a smooth transition to college life – helping you get to know your fellow peers more quickly. You’ll have the opportunity to live together, attend the same classes, and network with faculty, staff, and alumni who share similar personal and professional interests.
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Who knew stamp collecting could be so fun? First, we give our new Buccaneers a passport. Then, for eight whirlwind weeks, they collect ‘stamps’ or stickers each time they participate in any of 18 different events and programs designed to assist first-year students in their transition into college life – inside and outside the classroom. Some of the programs are mandatory, many are optional, and all are useful for helping incoming students get connected, involved and grounded at the very start of their Barry experience. At they end of eight weeks, stamped passports are handed in for a chance to win the FYE Grand Prize or Second Place package.
You’re definitely not in high school anymore! This is college, where the learning methods, classroom experiences, and teaching styles may all be very different from what you’re used to.
To help you master some skills essential to academic and personal success in a liberal arts university environment such as ours, we’ve created the First-Year Experience Seminar course (ORI 100) – open to all freshmen.
This one-credit course will help you become accustomed to a range of instructional strategies and different teaching approaches you will likely encounter during your time at Barry – including lecture, small group interaction, large group discussion, out of class readings, community interaction, and others.
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Let’s all start out on the same page. Welcome to your first assignment. (But it’s not a difficult one, promise.) Barry’s Common Reader program requires that all first-year students read the same book prior to arriving for classes in the fall – regardless of their specific major area of study.
This allows for a free exchange of different perspectives, ideas and reactions to the same text at the start of your Barry studies. It’s a valuable shared experience that will help integrate you into the University learning community as early as possible. We’ve watched it work.
Looking for strength in all the right places. A true liberal arts education is about more than what’s taught within the walls of a classroom.
Barry life begins with workshops and assessments that challenge you to Discover Your Calling – reflecting on your deeper purpose in order to use your talents and gifts to make a difference in the world.
And Barry’s Leadership Development/Service program encourages you to stay truly involved on campus and within the larger community beyond.
Whether you’re joining a student organization, starting one yourself, or volunteering for service projects off-campus, valuable leadership skills are built by putting yourself out there. The experience you gain leaves you more connected, organized, confident, and capable – and can greatly enhance your ability to manage effectively, work efficiently, and interact successfully with a broad scope of people.
Connecting the past, present and future. Academics are the star, but campus traditions have always played a key supporting role at Barry University. They create a familiar rhythm to life here – events and happenings that unfold year-round and link us to our history, inspire us and amuse us, involve us and nurture our unique university character.
As a new student, we strongly encourage you to participate in as many Barry traditions as possible. Not only will you meet new friends and share common experiences, but you’ll learn the ways – and benefits – of Living a Barry Life.