Welcome, Januarians!

It’s official: those who started at Fletcher this past fall are no longer the newest students here. Our class of Januarians arrived today, and they’re currently working through a full orientation schedule. We had a chance for a quick hello at this morning’s welcome breakfast, and will look forward to a bit more face time between now and the weekend. It’s always nice when the weather cooperates, too, never a guarantee in these parts in January. Our 7th-floor lobby always provides a sweet view of downtown Boston, and that’s particularly true on a clear sunny day like today. One nice thing about January orientation, both for new students and administrators, is that these students have Fletcher pretty much to themselves for the rest of this week. It gives them a nice chance to focus on getting to know each other, and us, over the coming few days before students return next week to start the spring semester. We’re of course eagerly anticipating having the rest of our students back, but for now it’s nice to have the chance to welcome the newest Fletcher community members in a bit of a quieter setting.

The smaller class size (around 30, as opposed to 250 or so in the fall) means a somewhat shorter orientation schedule, but it’s basically still the same amount of information covered in three days rather than five (the logic: new students typically feel overwhelmed during the first few weeks of classes, so why not acclimate them by overwhelming them at orientation, too?). The new class will meet with all the major administrative offices at Fletcher, spend some time on academic schedules and planning, and head out for a few group social engagements in the evenings, in addition to taking economics and quantitative reasoning equivalency exams, and making sure they’re properly on-boarded for a variety of university IT systems. Just writing that tires me out, and I’ll be sure to extend an encouraging word to our Januarians on behalf of all our readers. Welcome to Fletcher!