Departmental and University Orientation

University orientation programs typically rely on divisions of student affairs to build a system of student transition. With some help from academic departments, university wide orientations are loaded with the burdens of meeting a wide variety of institutional expectations while simultaneously responding to the personal needs of new students. Departmental orientation programs have evolved out of a combination of a need to transfer specific information about a major and to convey a sense of departmental expectation for student work and performance. The current study made use of a case study to identify the perceptions of current students about how university and departmental orientation programs do and should work together.