Welcome to the Bulldog family.
As a new student at Drake, Welcome Weekend is your first opportunity to settle in, connect with peers, and immerse yourself in campus life before regular classes begin. Over the span of about three days, you’ll experience social gatherings, campus tours, themed programming, and community-building events designed to help you feel at home and energized for the journey ahead.
What Makes Welcome Weekend Different than Orientation?
Curious about what to expect? Let’s set the record straight.
Welcome Weekend is not an extension of high school. It’s not summer camp. It’s not the same as your Summer Orientation experience.
Instead, Welcome Weekend is your launchpad into college life—a time to start building meaningful connections, discovering academic expectations, and shaping your place in the Drake community.
During Welcome Weekend:
- You’ll get to know your First Year Seminar (FYS) classmates, your floormates, and other students in your residence hall. If you’re a commuter student, this is your chance to connect with fellow commuters and your FYS peers.
- You’ll attend a college- or school-specific meeting, hosted by your academic unit—Arts & Sciences, Pharmacy & Health Sciences, Education, Journalism & Mass Communication, or Business. These meetings, held throughout the weekend, will help you understand your program and meet the faculty and staff you’ll be directly learning from and interacting with.
- You’ll participate in scheduled Welcome Weekend events and planned activities throughout your fall semester that are designed to support your transition to college.
- You’ll have a chance to build a relationship with your PMAC—a student leader dedicated to helping you navigate your first semester.
Welcome Weekend is designed to help you start strong. Show up, engage fully, and take advantage of every opportunity to build your Bulldog foundation.
What is a PMAC?
A key part of your transition will be with your Peer Mentor/Academic Consultant (PMAC). PMACs are upper-class students trained to help guide you through your first semester. Starting as early as July, your PMAC will reach out to welcome you, facilitate peer connections during Welcome Weekend within your First Year Seminar (FYS), and continue supporting you individually or in small groups throughout the semester. They help with time management, academic strategies, connecting with faculty, and navigating both academic and nonacademic resources.
Your First Year Seminar
We house our first-year students primarily based on their FYS course. We do our best to get everyone in a single FYS housed in the same building, if not on the same floor. If you choose your own roommate, and they are not in your FYS, you will be housed on either your or your roommate’s FYS floor based on availability.
Your FYS quickly becomes a living/learning community. These friendships and relationships begin as early as Welcome Weekend. Your FYS cohort is the same group of students you’ll move through Welcome Weekend with, under the leadership of your PMAC. This allows you to meet other students outside of your major and have a go-to group of friends from day one.
Throughout your first semester, your PMAC will arrange activities for your FYS. Some hold capture the flag tournaments around campus, while others grab a bite at the Drake Diner or host movie nights.
No matter what, you’ll develop a special sense of community and make life-long friends.