First-Year Engineering CoRe Experience

Welcome back to The Spartan Orientation Station 💚

In this episode, we’re learning more about the First-Year Engineering CoRe Experience at Michigan State University.

CoRe is designed to help first-year engineering students live, learn, succeed, and engage as they begin their time at MSU. From designated housing in South Neighborhood to first-year engineering courses and tutoring, CoRe gives students support inside and outside of the classroom.

Whether you’re an incoming engineering student or just want to learn more about what support looks like in the College of Engineering, tune in to hear how CoRe helps Spartans build community, explore their goals, and start engineering their future. 🎧

What is The Spartan Orientation Station?

Nervous about starting at Michigan State? Worried about your class schedule, living away from home, or where to even start? The Spartan Orientation Station (SOS) is a podcast hosted by New Student Orientation staff and was created by students for students. This podcast will launch twice a week throughout the summer, and each episode will feature a unique interview with campus departments discussing their services, common misconceptions, and fun Spartan engagement opportunities. When you need help at Michigan State, it is okay to signal SOS! Don’t worry – MSU is there for you.

Narrator: 00:08

You're listening to the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact eighty nine FM, the podcast by students for students. Now this week's episode.

Andrew P.: 00:19

Welcome back to the Spartan Orientation Station. On this week's episode, we will be talking about the Cornerstone Engineering and Residential Experience, also known as CORe. Hi, my name is Andrew. I'm a student coordinator here at New Student Orientation and going into my final year at Michigan State University. I'm majoring in political science pre law and history.

Kirsten D.: 00:38

Hi, I'm Kirsten. I'm also a student coordinator for the NSO office, and I'm going into my third year at MSU majoring in social relations and policy. Today, are joined by Carmela Davis King, who is from CoRe, where the First Year Engineering Experience. Thank you so much for joining us. Can you briefly introduce yourself and your role within CoRe?

Carmela Davis K.: 00:55

Well, first, thank you so very much for having me. It's an honor and a privilege to talk about the thing that I love the most, and that's my work with the College of Engineering First-Year Engineering Experience Program. So I'd like to say I've been here for about one hundred years now. I am originally from Michigan. And so with the CoRe program, I do everything that's outside of the classroom to ensure that our students have a successful experience.

Carmela Davis K.: 01:21

And that means that first year students become second year students and second year students become third year students.

Andrew P.: 01:27

Thank you so much. And then how does CORE help new students through their transition to college?

Carmela Davis K.: 01:32

That's an excellent, excellent question. So as students transition from high school, they very quickly learn that this is a very different experience, right? And it takes a lot to be successful. And so what our program tries to do is that we do a lot of programming outside of the classroom. And the key areas will be their academic, their social and their professional development.

Carmela Davis K.: 01:55

So for a first year student, you won't see inside the College of Engineering until your second year. And so we do everything we can to keep them motivated, but also to keep them connected to faculty and staff. And then one of the amazing things that we have is that we have corporate sponsors. And so we plug all of those individuals into those three key areas. So some of our program will be academic.

Carmela Davis K.: 02:17

So classes are hard. We have a tutoring program. Our peer leaders, which are students, undergraduate students who have mastered this thing called academics. And so now it's their opportunity to give back.

Kirsten D.: 02:29

So you touched on this a little bit, but what are some benefits to being in the core program?

Carmela Davis K.: 02:33

Well, get to meet me. Seriously. So I mentioned peer leaders a little bit earlier. So peer leaders are undergraduate engineering majors. And one of the things that they get to do is that they get to meet and interact with those students who live there.

Carmela Davis K.: 02:49

And so they get the firsthand knowledge about what it takes to be successful. And then there's the part of the program that we can't plan for, and that's how they meet each other. And they learn to lean on each other, and they learn to form study groups, and then friendships that you start to see students that you've saw on their first day, and you're like, welcome to Michigan State University College of Engineering. And then as they're walking across the stage, you get to see that those same six people are still standing with each other and they're hugging each other and they're crying together saying that we made it. But the other thing is that we truly, truly invest in the success of our students.

Carmela Davis K.: 03:24

Same group of students over in the South Neighborhood. All of us are pulling to make sure that they're successful, but there's other engineering student support programs there. There's our Career Center. There's a fantastic group of people who are working with first year students to say, don't wait until your sophomore year or your senior year to get acquainted with our companies. This is how you interview.

Carmela Davis K.: 03:48

This is how your resume is supposed to look. And so we had that Career Center folks who are working with the students. And then we also have our academic advisors who are in the same same area who are helping the students to make sure that they have the classes that they need in order to graduate and not that they're always saying, Hey, I heard that you need to take this particular class from your peers. The academic advisors are in this living and learning environment, and they're interacting with the students as well. And so that's the benefit is that you have everything you need on this large campus, and then we make it a smaller environment in that first year where you have everything that you need in your living and learning environment.

Andrew P.: 04:26

We've actually had a few core peer leaders move through NSO working for us and they are always some of the easiest people to talk to. I'm still friends of some today so they've been amazing just in always.

Carmela Davis K.: 04:38

That's so good to hear.

Andrew P.: 04:39

Yeah. So what events or programs does CoRe have for its students?

Carmela Davis K.: 04:44

So as students come onto campus we have a what I like to call it as a pep rally. That's their colloquium and that's mandatory for every college on this campus. And that's just a welcome event that we have for our students. And so we try and bring Sparti, we have confetti, we just are so high energy saying welcome, welcome, welcome. We want you to get on fire with, your academics.

Carmela Davis K.: 05:10

We want to help you get acclimated to campus. So here's our first introduction into who we are. And then throughout the week, there's tutoring and those same peer leaders that you talked about, they get all of the names of the students, all of the email addresses, and we put them into a group, GroupMe. And we'll say, hey, here is a Math 132 GroupMe. If you wanna study together, if you want to learn together, hey, connect with each other.

Carmela Davis K.: 05:36

And so that's one way.

Kirsten D.: 05:37

If a new student hears about CoRe and decides that this is the experience for them, how can they join the program? Is there an application process? Can they join at any point or just as an incoming student?

Carmela Davis K.: 05:48

Thing about CoRe is that no matter where you live on campus, you're part of this First Year Experience program. It makes it easier for you to participate when you're in the neighborhood. We know that for a fact, but I'll email students. I'll send things through the mail. My email is king karmmsu dot edu.

Carmela Davis K.: 06:07

And it's so funny that at graduation students will say King Karm. They don't know my first name, but they know my email address and that I'm gonna harass you through email. I'm gonna send things through the mail. We're going to knock on your doors and I'm good at faces, but I don't always remember names. So if I see your face once, I'm going to, I want to remember you and continue to harass you and ask you, what do you need?

Carmela Davis K.: 06:28

What can I do to help? How are you doing? Seriously, talk to me. And then I'll tell the students, I'll look on their face. I'll say, don't lie to me.

Carmela Davis K.: 06:34

Tell me how are you doing and what can I do to help? And on that first day of school, we want everyone to come over to Wilson Hall where we do our first day of school pictures.

Andrew P.: 06:44

And then if a student is unsure about whether engineering is right for them, how can CoRe help them figure out what lies ahead if they pursue engineering?

Carmela Davis K.: 06:51

Well, here's the thing. If a student decides that engineering is not for them, I think the most important thing that they need to hear is we want you to stay. We want you to stay on campus. We want you to thrive and we want you to graduate no matter what your major is. That's the most important thing.

Carmela Davis K.: 07:09

And we're not going to kick you out if you decide on day two engineering is not for you. So no green card is going to come to your door and kick you out of the neighborhood. We believe that all of the programs that we have can ensure the success of any student regardless of their major, but more specifically want to make sure that students thrive in engineering. I have a lot of students who might say in that first year, I've taken Math 132 and engineering is not for me. I want to have you come to my office.

Carmela Davis K.: 07:36

I want you to go to the Engineering Advising Center. I want you to even talk to one of the professionals in the Career Center so we can continue to motivate you.

Kirsten D.: 07:44

So our next question is about the course load for

Carmela Davis K.: 07:48

the core program. Are there any mandatory classes? So here's the part where I say it is very important for you to maintain a relationship with your academic advisor. Academic advising is so very important. It's not that they just help you with your courses.

Carmela Davis K.: 08:02

There might be a financial aid question that you have. There might be a housing question that you have that your advisor can assist you with. Now having said that, I'll go back to it's so very important that you maintain a relationship with your advisor because they can help you figure out those classes and what course load is gonna help you gain the success that you seek. So for some students, they might take like sixteen, seventeen credits in that first year, But an academic advisor who is a professional will say, tell me how hard you studied when you were in high school. And some students might say, you know what?

Carmela Davis K.: 08:35

It came easy. I didn't have to really study that hard. And so the academic advisor might ease them into taking the minimum amount of credits, or if they said, studied really, really hard, where they can decide how many credits is appropriate, maintaining that they're taking the correct credits, the correct courses that'll help them progress to the next level of courses. So I don't want to touch that because I don't want to say anything wrong. Just want to say maintain a relationship with your academic advisor.

Andrew P.: 09:05

And then what would you say is the easiest way to join or be involved in the core program?

Carmela Davis K.: 09:10

Come. Come out to our programs. Just show up. Just always be willing to step outside the box and to do something different. And if you have that willingness to try, if you have that grit to say, you know what, no matter what, I'm going to be successful.

Carmela Davis K.: 09:25

You just come to our programs. Our students will talk to you and figure out what things you like, what things that you wish you had an opportunity to explore, and we'll get you connected, whether it's just student organizations, whether it's to the folks in our Career Center, or whether it's the people in the academic advising office or different programs on campus. Just show up and if you show up, allow us to do the rest. We'll get you connected.

Kirsten D.: 09:50

Is there a good way to get in contact with CoRe? A social media, an email, a phone number?

Carmela Davis K.: 09:56

That's a great question. So you can follow us on Instagram at CoRePeers. You can follow us on Facebook at the College of Engineering CoRe Experience. We are located in C 101 Wilson Hall, and our telephone number is [phone].

Kirsten D.: 10:14

Thank you so much for joining us today. That wraps us up. Make sure you join us next time for our next episode of the Spartan Orientation Station. Bye.

Narrator: 10:23

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact eighty nine FM. Let us know what you think by connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at MSU underscore NSO.