Undergraduate Orientation

Welcome to the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Orientation is the moment you join the NYU Steinhardt community to get started, to get connected, to be involved, and to stay informed. Choose the session you plan to attend to:

• Meet with your advisor, learn about your major, understand your degree requirements, and discuss your educational plan
• Decide on your fall semester schedule, register for your courses
• Discover the student resources and services that will help you grow and develop
• Meet peers, make friends
• Walk around, get acquainted with your new neighborhood

To inform your families about your life in and outside the classroom, they, too, will join our community through orientation. Families are invited to attend a Question & Answer session following the Dean's Welcome. Follow the below instructions to learn more.

We look forward to your arrival!

New Student Orientation 2008

Transfer Student Orientation 2008

Meet Your Orientation Leaders for Summer 2008

New Student Seminar and Required Reading 2008

Welcome Week 2008

NEW STUDENT ORIENTATION 2008

Please plan to attend one of the following sessions:

June 24-25
July 10-11
August 25-26

Overnight stay in Brittany Residence Hall is required for students who are attending the June or July session.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

DAY ONE

June 24-25 or July 10-11 Session:
New Student and Parent sessions run concurrently.

• Student/Parent Check-in 8:30 am at Brittany Residence Hall, 55 East 10th Street at Broadway

Students and Parents will be escorted to the Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South.

Student/Parent Check-in (9 am, Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South, Rosenthal Pavilion, 10th floor). Your housing contract goes into effect August 24th.

• Dean's Welcome

• Student Pre-Advisement Sessions

Parents - see Parents' Orientation Schedule

• Foreign Language Placement Examinations

• Music Theory Placement Examination (Music Majors only)

• HEOP/C-STEP Advisement Meetings (June 24th only)

• Information Fair

• Workshops

• Social Activities

• President's Welcome & The Reality Show (August session)

DAY TWO

• Advisement

• Course Registration

• Check-out of Brittany Residence Hall (3 pm, June and July sessions)

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

One Day Session Tuesday, June 24 or Thursday, July 10:

• Student/Parent Check-in 8:30 am at Brittany Residence Hall, 55 East 10th Street at Broadway

Students and Parents will be escorted to the Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South.

Students will move into their pre-advisement sessions and parents will participate in Parents' Orientation.

• Dean's Welcome
Parents will move to Parent Information Sessions and choose from the following:

• Morning Sessions:
Housing & Residential Education
History of Greenwich Village
Commuter Student Services

• Lunch (on your own)

• Afternoon Sessions:
Student Health Services
Public Safety
University Resources/Parent Hotline

• The New Student Experience Panel Discussion
• Dean's Reception & Information Fair

Parents' Orientation will conclude by 6 pm

Morning Session August 25:

• Student/Parent Check-in 9 am, Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South

• Dean's Welcome
Students will move into their pre-advisement sessions.

• Parents' Question & Answer Session

Parents' Session will conclude by 12 noon

Register for Orientation by June 6, 2008

Registration materials are available online at www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/orientation

Please check the website for information on:

• Accommodations for Parents and Guests
• Directions to Campus
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Immunization Requirements
• Important Dates
• New Student Seminar Required Reading
• NYU Welcome Week
• Registration and Consent Form
• Placement Exams

Questions? Call 212 998 5065 or email steinhardt.orientation@nyu.edu

STUDENT CHECKLIST:

• Review the information on our website, www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/orientation
• Download and submit your Orientation Registration and Consent Form by June 6th, available online at ww.steinhardt.nyu.edu/orientation
• Check your NYU email account for updates and confirmation of your orientation date
• Make travel arrangements to arrive at NYUSteinhardt

Click here to download the New Undergraduate Student Orientation 2008 brochure

TRANSFER STUDENT ORIENTATION 2008

Please plan to attend one of the following sessions:

June 19
July 8
August 25-26

Schedule of Events

Thursday, June 19 or Tuesday, July 8

• Student/Parent Check-in & Continental Breakfast
  9 am Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South, Rosenthal Pavilion, 10th floor

• Dean's Welcome
  9:30 am

• Orientation Preview:
  10 am Who, What, Where & HowWho does what? Rights and Responsibilities of Advisors/ Students? Transfer Credit Evaluation?

• Pre-Advisement Sessions
  11 am Meet with Advisors/Orientation Leaders to determine which placement exams to take; schedule time to meet with your advisors.

• Parents' Question & Answer Session
  11 am

• Expository Writing Examination
  11:30 am Required of all new Transfer Students.

• Lunch & Information Fair
  12:30 pm

• Transfer Essentials (Concurrent sessions)
  1:30 - 5 pm

Session A: Music Theory Placement Examination
1:30 - 3:30 Music Majors only.
Private Instruction/Placement Activities

Session B: CCTOP Information Session
1:30 - 2:30 For CCTOP students. Meet with Bart Grachan, Director, Community College Transfer Opportunity Program

Session C: Foreign Language Placement Examination
1:45 - 2:45 Placement exams

Session D: Advisement & Registration
1:30 - 5 Meet with your advisor; finalize your schedule, register on Albert.

Thursday, August 25 -26

(Your housing contract goes into effect August 24th.)

DAY ONE

9 am Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South, Rosenthal Pavilion, 10th floor

• Student/Parent Check-in & Continental Breakfast
  Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South, Rosenthal Pavilion, 10th floor

• Dean's Welcome

• Question & Answer Session (Parents only)

• Pre-Advisement Sessions

• Expository Writing Examination

• President's Welcome and The Reality Show

• Music Theory Placement Examination (Music Majors only)

DAY TWO

9 am

• Advisement

• Foreign Language Placement Examinations

• Course Registration

The August session will conclude by 5 pm. The August session will run two days to include NYUWelcome Week activities.

PARENTS' QUESTION & ANSWER SESSIONS

Parents are invited to attend the Dean's Welcome followed by a Question & Answer session offered at each Transfer Student Orientation.

REGISTRATION

Orientation Registration Deadlines

June 6, 2008 for the June 17 session
June 20, 2008 for the July 8 session
August 15, 2008 for the August 25-26 session

Registration materials are available online at www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/orientation

Please check the website for information on:

• Accommodations for Parents and Guests
• Directions to Campus
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Immunization Requirements
• Important Dates
• New Student Seminar Required Reading
• NYU Welcome Week
• Registration and Consent Form
• Placement Exams

Questions? Call 212 998 5065 or email steinhardt.orientation@nyu.edu

TRANSFER STUDENT CHECKLIST:

• Submit your Candidate Reply Form and tuition deposit
• Review the information on our website, www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/orientation
• Download and submit your Orientation Registration and Consent Form, available online at www.steinhardt.nyu.edu/orientation
• Check your NYU email account for updates and confirmation of your orientation date
• Make travel arrangements to arrive at NYU Steinhardt

Click here to download the Transfer Student Orientation 2008 brochure

Meet Your Orientation Leaders for Summer 2008

Click here to meet the NYUSteinhardt students who will conduct your Orientation.

New Student Seminar and Required Reading 2008-09

The New Student Seminar is a required course for all new students enrolled in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. This year's required reading selection is The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud.

THE CLASS

The New Student Seminar (E03.0001) is your bridge to college life and will help you become familiar with the University, the Steinhardt School, and your program of study. You will also begin exploring your role as new college students against the backdrop of this year's new student theme and new student reading.

THE THEME Learning from Books, from Life, and from the City

New York City is the stuff of legends, a city with a mythology all its own. "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere," wrote Fred Ebb in his famous song, "New York, New York." Edith Wharton, Henry James, Saul Bellow, and even Candice Bushnell have written "society novels," which attempt to capture the city and its denizens at a particular moment in time. New York City, at the turn of the 21st century is the subject of The Emperor's Children, a popular novel that looks at the dynamics of a group of friends and relations whose lives intersect and are changed by 9/11. Like the characters in Claire Messud's novel, you have come to New York City and NYU to carve out your own destiny. Your life, the novel, is shaped by the family who launched you into this world, as well as the friends you meet, the books you read, and the choices you make about how you will live your life.

THE ASSIGNMENT

The Emperor's Children is about the ‘odyssey years,' a decade of wandering that occurs between adolescence and adulthood. During this period, the characters explore adulthood, decide what kind of people they are, work through their attachment to their parents and authority figures, and come to terms with the post 9/11 world. The characters in the book evoke in us a wide variety of responses. Messud has said, "I believe that these guys, for all their faults and limitations, are no worse than most of us...I was trying to portray people as I see them, motivated by conflicting impulses, given to shabby thoughts and actions, but not, for the most part, bad people." How are the "emperor's children" like or not like us? What conflicts do they face? How is their journey like or unlike your own? As you put pen to a new chapter in your life, think about how you would write your story. Is it a story of independence or dependency or a little bit of both? What kind of character are you? What do you strive to achieve? Where do you imagine yourself in 2012 in 2022?

THE DEAN'S CONVOCATION

In early fall, Dean Mary Brabeck will help us to further our understanding of the novel's theme at a special ceremony.

MORE QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

Books play an important role in the way we see and understand the world. Messud's novel is filled with allusions to books including Homer's The Odyssey, Emerson's Self-Reliance, and Tolstoy's War and Peace. How does your own reading illuminate your understanding of yourself? How does your reading define you?
In Western culture, youth is generally a time to challenge authority and rebel. How do the characters in The Emperor's Children rebel or not rebel? How have you challenged authority in your own life?

The characters in The Emperor's Children are steeped in material comforts. Can you give some example of the material comforts that are in their lives? Do these characters make sacrifices to live "in the style they are accustomed to?" Who does and who does not? What sacrifices have you made leaving your home? How is this life better or worse than what you are accustomed to?

ll of us are shaped by the time we came of age. Murray Thwaite came of age in the 1960s and became a "celebrity academic" through the books he published. A Murray Thwaite coming of age today might find it much harder to publish and attain guru status because we live in a time when blogs and online magazines allow for a wide variety of voices and visions to flourish. How does your coming of age at this time influence your goals or visions for what you might be and what you hope to achieve?

The characters in the novel struggle with their "ordinariness." Marina thought getting a job would make her "ordinary," Julius finds he is too ordinary to hold his own with David's friends in Fire Island, and Bootie doesn't want the extraordinary experience of attending Harvard. What are some of the struggles you face in being ordinary in a society, a community in which everyone is constantly striving to be unique? Are the characters in The Emperor's Children extraordinary in your opinion?

The structure of The Emperor's Children is built on a foundation of triangulations. In what ways are relationships triangulated? Who gains and who is hurt by these triangulations? How true to life is this configuration?

9/11 is a pivotal moment in the lives of these characters. You may have been in the 6th grade when the Twin Towers were attacked. How have you been shaped by 9/11? What other world events have shaped you and how?

The Emperor's Children takes its title from the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. In what way does that story illuminate the text? Whose motivations are transparent and who is protected from the truth? How vulnerable are these characters in the world that they live in?

"Imagine No Possessions; Adopting the ‘Simplicity' Life" was a article that appeared recently in the New York Times (5/17/08, A10) about young couples donating their possessions to charity and choosing to live a life of simplicity, few possessions. How is this different from the materialism of the book's characters? What do they share in common?

"Look at your own building, you are the city," wrote Muriel Rukeyser in her poem, ‘Despisals.' Among the characters in The Emperor's Children is the character of the city itself. How does Messud bring the New York City to life? How does the city that Annabel's clients inhabit differ from Booty's city or the city that Danielle and Marina inhabit? How does race and class influence your vision of Manhattan and it boroughs? What brought you to New York City? What kind of mark do you hope to make on New York, New York

Welcome Week

Welcome Week, a University-wide week of information sessions, welcome events and activities to introduce new students to NYU, will begin on August 25, 2008.

During Welcome Week you will have the opportunity to participate in workshops, activities, and events -- all designed to help you get started -- with new classmates who are also beginning their studies in one of the other seven undergraduate divisions at NYU.

For more information on Welcome Week, please visit www.nyu.edu/src.