Undergraduate First Year Experience

First-Year Experience: Design Your Life

At the Carlson School, we ask you to be curious. To try things. And we give you the tools to start designing your college experience in alignment with your values and interests. All first-year students will be asked to participate in the Design Your Life First-Year Experience Program and work with your peers and Carlson Crew Leaders to intentionally design this important next chapter.

The Design Your Life program is based on a popular class and book Designing Your Life from Stanford Design School. Parts of your orientation, Welcome Week, and fall semester will focus on designing your Carlson School experience (or your life). Starting in Fall 2022, all new students at the Carlson School will take a 1-credit course called Design Your Life. Using a process rooted in Design Thinking, this class equips you with tools to design and prototype a college experience that best aligns with who you are and what you hope to get from college. These skills will help you make thoughtful choices about classes, internships, student groups, and generally how to spend your energy.

Women's Business Network - Living & Learning Community

Women’s Business Network is a space where students who identify as women can feel empowered to grow and explore the world of business. Regardless of your major, you will find a community that will help you acclimate to the University of Minnesota.

This community will help you build a network early in your college careers, connect with peers from across campus who have similar interests and goals, and gain valuable opportunities for personal and professional development.

Living in Women’s Business Network is a great way to find your path to success. If you join us next year, you will be connected with diverse women business leaders who bring a wide variety of lived experiences from multiple professional industries.

Gain exclusive opportunities to register for leadership programming such as the Equity and Leadership Conference or Women’s Power Lunches to explore your identity as a woman and navigate challenges to equity in the workplace.

Find yourself forming study groups with ease in this house and reap the benefits of having an experienced upperclassman as your Community Advisor.

This house is located in Sanford Hall and houses approximately 60 students. Contact the LLC sponsor, the Carlson Undergraduate Program Office with questions.

This community is open to first-year residents.

Carlson Crew

First-year students will receive a Carlson Crew Leader who will welcome, orient, and support them throughout the First Year Experience. Carlson Crew Leaders are upperclassmen who share collegiate experiences, provide guidance and resources, and plan engaging opportunities for their freshman orientation groups.

Get Involved

You’ve probably heard it a million times: getting involved is a great thing to do, an opportunity to build community, form connections, and make friends.

But how do you get involved? There are so many ways to get involved and the important part of it all is getting involved in a way that is authentic to you. Are you interested in growing as a leader? Consider joining a student organization or a subcommittee on the Business Board (our student government). Are you interested in diving deeper into your academics? Consider an enterprise and really engage with your coursework in a new way. Maybe you’re really looking for community, check out our Diversity & Inclusion programming to connect with others. Whatever feels right to you is possible at Carlson. For more information and some great suggestions to start exploring involvement at Carlson check out this guide in our student portal. 

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