First-Year Orientation
Help Students Feel at Home From Day One
Orientation Programs • City Immersions • Team Building • Academic & Career Exploration
Make Orientation More Than a Campus Tour.
The best orientations do more than show students where things are. They help students build relationships, gain confidence, and feel a sense of belonging.
EdOdyssey partners with orientation and student success teams to add an experiential layer through city exploration, team building, academic and career connections, and shared experiences. Your team leads essential campus programming while we manage logistics and help students discover their new community.
Bring Orientation Beyond Campus
Help students connect with the place they’re going to college.
Students explore the neighborhoods, people, culture, history, and traditions that make their new community distinctive while building confidence beyond campus.
Place • Confidence • Belonging
Create shared experiences that bring students together.
Team challenges, small-group exploration, meals, and hands-on activities create natural opportunities to form relationships before routines and friend groups take shape.
People • Connection • Community
Show students what’s possible beyond the classroom.
Local professionals, alumni, organizations, and industries help students connect their academic interests with careers, community, and future opportunities.
Purpose • Academics • Careers
Designed Around Your Students, Campus & City
Every Experience Has a Purpose
The EdOdyssey 4P Framework
Orientation should be fun, but it should also advance the outcomes your institution cares about. Our 4P Framework connects exploration and shared experience with intentional first-year learning.
PEOPLE
Start building meaningful relationships.
PLACE
Develop a connection to their new home.
PERSPECTIVE
Explore new people, ideas, and experiences.
PURPOSE
Connect college to interests and future possibilities.
What Could This Look Like?
Sample Boston First-Year Orientation
Boston offers a strong example of how experiential orientation can complement traditional campus programming. Students spend part of the experience learning the essentials of their institution and part discovering their new city through academic, career, cultural, and team-building experiences.
The sample below adapts the Boston orientation model we’ve already designed, pairing university-led campus programming with themed city experiences.
Day 1 | Arrive & Connect
Students arrive, get oriented, and begin getting to know their new city and one another. A shared activity and meal create an easy first opportunity to build relationships.
Sample Experiences:
Arrival support • Neighborhood introduction • Team building • Shared meal • Peer connection
Day 2 | Campus Orientation
Your university leads the programming it knows best, from academics and advising to campus resources, student life, and expectations. EdOdyssey supports the experience with accommodations, transportation, staffing, meals, and student movement as needed.
Sample Experiences:
Campus orientation • Academic resources • Advising • Student life • Campus connections
ART & INNOVATION
Explore creativity, entrepreneurship, technology, and Boston’s innovation economy through creative spaces, emerging neighborhoods, and local professionals.
Day 3 | Explore Boston
Students choose from themed tracks that turn Boston into an extension of orientation. Each combines neighborhood exploration, hands-on learning, local voices, and opportunities to connect students’ interests with their new city
HISTORY & PEOPLE
Explore Boston’s history and neighborhoods through storytelling and community voices, considering identity, resilience, and belonging.
SPORTS & CULTURE
Explore how sports, music, traditions, and major events shape Boston’s identity and create connection across the city.
Day 4 | Reflect & Depart
Students leave knowing more than where their classes are. They have new relationships, greater confidence navigating their surroundings, and a stronger connection to the community they're joining.
Sample Experiences:
Group reflection • Peer connection • Personal goal setting • Departure
More Experience. Less Operational Lift.
You Focus on Welcoming Students. We'll Help Run the Experience.
Orientation is already one of the busiest times of year for campus teams. EdOdyssey can take responsibility for the operational pieces required to move students safely and smoothly beyond campus, whether we’re supporting one part of orientation or managing most of the experience.
PROGRAM DESIGN
TRANSPORTATION
& LODGING
TRAINED PROGRAM LEADERS
ACTIVITIES & RESERVATIONS
HEALTH & SAFETY
STUDENT COMMUNICATION
Our Boston orientation model, for example, incorporates accommodations, transportation, meals, pre-departure support, EdOdyssey educators, experiential programming, 24/7 emergency assistance, and student registration support.
Your team can own the campus experience.
We help students discover everything beyond it.
Build around your orientation
From One Cohort to an Entire Incoming Class
Experiential orientation can work for a small cohort or scale across hundreds of students. Larger groups can divide into interest-based tracks with staggered transportation, activities, and trained Program Leaders, preserving a smaller-group feel within a larger shared experience.
The Boston model we designed demonstrates this structure at significant scale, with three simultaneous themed tracks built for 100 students each.
Make it your own
Your Campus. Your City. Your Orientation.
Every orientation should reflect the institution and the community students are joining. We can build around your existing orientation or design a more comprehensive experience with you.
KEEP YOUR CAMPUS PROGRAM
We'll design and manage the experiential city component around it.
BUILD IT TOGETHER
We'll collaborate on an integrated campus and community experience.
OUTSOURCE MORE
We'll take on more of the program design, staffing, logistics, and delivery.
Let's Build an Orientation Students Remember
Whether you want to add an experiential component to an orientation you already run or outsource more of the experience, we’ll build around your students, goals, campus, location, calendar, and budget.
Give students the information they need to start college successfully, then give them the experiences and relationships that help their new university and community start to feel like home.