Posted on July 23: New McMaster students participate in special prelude to first-year University

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/prelude.jpg” caption=”The Prelude to Mac team”]

New students at McMaster University will receive a special introduction to the 2004-05 academic year through a new online orientation program called Prelude to Mac.

Launched Monday, July 19, Prelude to Mac is designed to help ease the transition from high school to University for first-year students before they arrive for classes in September.

The Web site, which is organized around seven weekly themes such as Introduction to Mac, campus resources and academic success, comes complete with videos, information, weekly quizzes and message boards.

Michele Corbeil of the First-Year Experience Office is one of the founders of the project. “Prelude to Mac will help new students become familiar and comfortable with the campus and university life. It allows new students to meet upper-year students online and assist them in achieving success while they are here,” Corbeil explains. Offering online services, including streaming video and message boards, Prelude is an innovative and emerging trend in welcoming and orienting first-year students to the University says Corbeil.

Each week, for seven weeks throughout the summer, students can view a new video, explore relevant Web links and test themselves on how much they have learned by taking a weekly quiz, explains Erin Tolan, Welcome Week co-ordinator and co-creator of the Prelude to Mac videos. “Students can get to know McMaster University, the Hamilton community, and a wide range of services and programs available to support them,” says Tolan.

A cornerstone of Prelude to Mac are the message boards where first-year students can meet and get to know other new students and have their questions answered by senior upper-year peer mentors says Kevin Gamble, Welcome Week co-ordinator and creator of the Prelude to Mac Web site and videos. “The on-line peer mentors, who are also Welcome Week representatives/planners and Residence Life staff, have been trained to support first-year students in an on-line environment,” says Gamble. In addition, academic advisors, Residence Life staff/managers and other University staff have been invited to participate in and moderate the message boards.

“This is an exciting use of technology that we hope will provide first-year students with a valuable source of information and a chance to meet other first-year and upper-year McMaster students,” says Mike Dinunzio, systems administrator for the Centre for Student Development, and member of the Prelude to Mac Project Team.

Prelude to Mac is one of several collaborative initiatives of three departments within Student Affairs. In addition to Prelude to Mac, the Centre for Student Development, Career Services, and the First-Year Experience Office will launch a series of online academic skills videos and workshops in August and the First-Year Ignition (F.Y.I.) Academic Success Fair in October, says Peter Walsh, academic skills counsellor with the Centre for Student Development.

McMaster is expecting to welcome between 4,400 and 4,500 first-year students to the University when classes begin in September.