All new first-year students and transfer students with fewer than 24 credits are required to participate in the August Welcome Experience (AWE) and Northland Highways parts of orientation.

Transfer students with 24 or more credits will have a unique transfer-specific onboarding and orientation during the August Welcome Experience (AWE).

Outdoor Orientation is optional, but highly encouraged!

Arriving to campus is truly an EVENT. Your arrival to campus is a busy time full of excitement, settling in, and some jitters about beginning this new experience. Don’t worry!

For most students, arriving to campus starts with moving-in. Refer to your Northland College email for move-in dates and read about what to pack. All move-in information will be sent to your Northland College email address from studentlife@northland.edu. Make sure you read everything over to know what is expected of you.

For students not residing on campus,  you will be assigned a designated check-in time.

Transfer students with 23 or fewer credits are required to participate in the August Welcome Experience. Outdoor Orientation is optional, but strongly encouraged!

Transfer students with 24 or more credits are required to participate in a specialized transfer onboarding experience. You can speak with your admissions counselor if you are interested in Outdoor Orientation, the August Welcome Experience, or the Northland Highways course. There may be additional costs associated with these experiences.

The cost for the August Welcome Experience is a flat fee of $400. This cost includes all meals, supplies, and materials. This fee is added to a student’s bill and is not due prior to AWE. It can be paid through the same process as tuition and room and board.

Outdoor Orientation costs depend on the trip. Some Outdoor Orientation trips don’t have an additional cost, but some longer trips may. See the Outdoor Orientation page to learn more.

Please note that transfer students with 24 or more credits may have higher pricing for outdoor orientation trips.

Your academic journey at Northland begins with your first college course, but you will not be traveling alone. The Northland Highways first-year seminar will support you during your first semester on campus. In Highways, you will gather weekly with peers, a student mentor, and an instructor (who could be a professor, coach, dean, or counselor) to reflect on this period of transition and consider topics like communities, careers, academic majors, support resources, the history of our place, and your future directions. You will get to know your fellow Highway travelers and share field trips experiences and discussions with guest speakers.

The goal of Northland Highways is to help student build success in their academic, social, and personal pursuits during their first college semester and beyond. Through this course, students will build connections with peers and professionals on campus, learn college-level academic expectations, develop a sense of personal and social responsibility, and cultivate a sense of place on campus, in Ashland, and beyond. Our goals in Northland Highways are to:

• Assist students in making a smooth transition to college life
• Help students develop a sense of belonging at Northland College
• Equip students with the tools to be successful in their academic, social, and personal lives
• Prepare students to be successful in their classes by familiarizing them with the structure, culture, and resources at Northland
• Build our students’ competence and confidence in the use of self-reflection as a tool for growth
• Cultivate students’ abilities to think critically about academic content in order to be productive scholars in their academic pursuits
• Teach students to value diverse experiences and perspectives, and to voice their own ideas in diverse contexts

If you are a new student (or transfer student with fewer than 24 credits), you will be automatically enrolled in a 1-credit Northland Highways group. If you are transferring at least 24 credits, you are not required to take Highways; but you may request to enroll.