Sophomore Year: Discover What Matters
Prospective students found their college fit at Dickinson. First-Year students navigated the initial transition and began to make Dickinson theirs. The sophomore experience focuses on the next step: discovering what matters.
The Sophomore Year
At Dickinson, the sophomore year is about discovering what matters to you and the community around you: What are these values, and how do they affect the decisions you make? By the end of the sophomore year, you should be able to say something about your decision-making style and how you weigh the various factors that may influence you—including both your own priorities and those of others.
The discovery process will be different for each student, and it will vary from one area of a student’s life to another. Overall, however, the sophomore experience focuses on making decisions, continuing exploration and balancing plans for the future with experiences in the here-and-now. Sometimes, determining what really matters may involve an exhilarating choice to add something new. Other times it may involve a difficult decision to let something go.
Regardless, an essential component of personal discovery requires reflecting on your identity and social location, noting the ways they affect your activities and environment and challenging yourself to venture beyond what is most familiar.
The themes addressed during the sophomore year connect directly to the college’s mission by helping to prepare students for lives of sustained inquiry, inclusive leadership and engaged citizenship.
Signature Programs
- What Matters Most dinner series
- Sophomore Leadership Retreat
- Decision Point series
- January Externship Program through the Career Center
- Civic Engagement Fair
- Special Interest Housing
- Inclusive Leadership Student Training
- Sophomore Ambassador Program
- Launch Party
- Application-based leadership opportunities
- Alpha Lambda Delta
- From Major to Career
- 21st Century Skill Set workshop