Florida Connect
A partnership between Student Affairs and Academic Affairs
What is Florida Connect?
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Florida Connect is a two-year Residential Learning Community for out-of-state students to help you connect with each other, work through challenges together, and make Florida and FAU your new home away from home. In Florida Connect, 46 first-year students from outside of Florida live together on one floor in Glades Park Tower and have a set of supports and experiences to help you succeed. In your second year, you have the option to live in Indian River Tower as part of the Sophomore Year Experience (SYE) program or as part of the Career Living Community (must be qualified and accepted into the program) where you may have the opportunity to serve in a paid internship as a mentor to next year’s Florida Connect students!
What are the benefits of Florida Connect?
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- Florida Connect students get to move in early (Sunday, Aug. 13) and will participate in an on-campus Camp Owls experience (Monday-Wednesday) to start to build strong friendships and skills. On Wednesday, meet the other 500 RLC students during a series of fun programs and participate in welcome events throughout the remainder of that first week.
- Florida Connect students will have someone OSSM (pronounced “awesome”) to guide them. An OSSM is an Out-of-State Student Mentor, a student who already made a successful transition to FAU from outside of Florida and who will meet with you and help guide you and support you.
- Students will also have a dedicated academic advisor, Ms. Angel Nevin (who moved to Florida as a college student years ago) who lives on-campus too! (Angel is the first live-on academic advisor in the state of Florida!)
- Florida Connect students will have a dedicated Resident Assistant (RA) who has also come to FAU from outside of Florida and will be able to relate to your experience.
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On the academic side, Florida Connect students will be enrolled in a new 2-credit course created just for you – SLS 2932: The Florida Connection. In this course you will learn about making your transition as an out-of-state student (with a focus on connecting, succeeding academically, and ensuring your out-of-class success) while also learning interesting things about your new state through the eyes of faculty across the university – and then have the opportunity to visit some of those places and experience them yourself! Most local trips will be available at no cost to the student, while some of the larger trips will be available at significantly reduced costs. Possible examples include:
- Learn about Florida as a center for hospitality and tourism and then visit Disney World to identify how they put hospitality into practice;
- Learn about the unique architecture of Addison Mizner and then visit local areas in Boca Raton that use his architectural style or that he designed;
- Learn about the Everglades as a unique environmental and ecological habitat and then participate in a visit to the Everglades with airboat rides;
- Learn about the Latin American and Caribbean cultures in South Florida and then spend the day in Miami visiting cultural locations and tasting their traditional foods;
- Learn about the marine life in Florida and visit Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute or Marine Lab in the Keys; and more… The possibilities are endless!
Students who successfully complete this two-year program with a minimum of a 3.0 FAU GPA and earn 60 credits before the start of the third fall semester will be awarded a tuition waiver for three-credits in their junior year.
This is great! How do I sign-up?
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If this sounds like a great way for you to start your FAU experience in fall 2017, Florida Connect is available to the FIRST 46 students who complete the Florida Connect acceptance form (but no later than Thursday, June 1 if spaces remain) and complete all of the pre-registration requirements below no later than Saturday, July 1:
- Completion of ALEKS PPL math assessment if without prior credit for college level mathematics
- Registration for orientation
- Completion of the Online Advising & Resource System (OARS)
- Removal of immunization hold and all other registration holds
- Completion of the FAU Housing Contract with application fee
- Completion of the FAU Residential Learning Community contract (on the Housing application website) and select “FLORIDA CONNECT” as your selected Learning Community.
Due to the high interest in this program, students who accept the invitation but fail to complete pre-registration requirements on or before July 1st will not have their space in the program held. We are excited to offer you this opportunity and look forward to you joining us in the fall.
For questions or more information, contact learningcommunity@fau.edu.