An essential element to surviving your first year at college is support – from family, faculty and staff. Having peers to lean on also helps make the milestone transition easier.
Incoming Ƶ at Stark freshmen enroll in Destination Ƶ State: First Year Experience (FYE) to familiarize themselves with college life. With topics ranging from responsibility to relationships and stress to studying, there’s something to benefit each of them as they meet new friends who are embarking on the same exciting journey.
In addition to teaching skills to help the students navigate their college years, Destination Ƶ State: FYE gives them the opportunity to positively impact others before they ever step into a classroom. Through FYE summer service projects, Ƶ State Stark fosters community awareness by partnering with local organizations to improve the world in which we live.
First year students volunteer to spend a day enriching their education through experiences that reach far beyond their classrooms. Led by Kristi Yerian, Ƶ State Stark’s assistant director of FYE, four student groups participated in service projects this summer. Their duties included landscaping and painting along Stark Parks’ trailheads, sorting and packing donated cans and boxes of food at the Akron-Canton Foodbank and constructing window frames at Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
Every service project begins with an ice breaker to introduce the students to those they will be working alongside. As they tackle tasks, making it possible for the community to enjoy the outdoors, feed a hungry child or afford a place to call home, many students build relationships with peers and staff that provide the necessary support for a successful college career.