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The Office of First Year Experience
The Office of First Year Experience designs, prepares, schedules, influences and
supports first year student success through the delivery of programs, resources,
special events and services designed to promote student engagement.
The Office of First Year Experience collaborates with stakeholders on and off campus to
create programs that positively impact first year students. These programs include New
Student Orientation, Welcome Week, and the Fresher's Ball programs.
There are many discrepancies and wide variations on the organization of the the Office
of First Year Experience among universities internationally, and this is echoed by the
variations we observe among the South African Universities.
The First Year Experience Office can be seen as one of the true expressions of
institutional student culture on the one hand, and an expression of the ways in which
the collective University Community wishes to create and maintain such a culture.
First Year Experience Organizations trying to coordinate the efforts of various organs of
the institution have led to the setting up of dedicated organizational structures whose
institutional function and mandate is the First Year Experience.