After examining the community i found it interesting how once the freshman are quickly placed into this new community they are pretty much abandoned. While Residence Life continues to hold weekly meetings which are not mandatory the freshman are pretty much left alone. The project began as a way for the freshman to communicate their new community home to their old community with a post card. Sort of connecting the two. However due to the point within the semester and the discovery that towards the end of the semester there is nothing visible maintaining the community i thought it would be interesting to use this post card to allow the freshman community to attempt to hold on to itself after they return home and are thrown back into their own community. I then began to develop the post card, looking at what was currently available. The ten options consisted of 4 views of Albany, 3 views of troy, and 2 views of upperclassman dorms. It was interesting that a freshman couldn't purchase something that showed who they were or what they experienced. In the creation of the post card i thought back to my past experience pulling out what was most memorable to me. I chose campus dining, the abundance of the laptops and the fact that you get sleep where ever you can. I then placed those on the post card as well as a background image of the campus itself. I then decided i would unite the freshman by congratulating them on making it through their first year. Attempting to say you made it together. Then to allow the student to personalize the post card and say what they them self found most interesting to them, i challenged them to rank their three most memorable moments or things of RPI. On the back i expressed my hope of the students to then over the summer send these to each other. The hope is to keep the bond in freshmen (now sophomore) community strong.

Freshman Hill

I began by looking at the RPI freshman community. This community exists on freshman hill on the east side of campus. It consists of 6 or so dorms all surrounding a central paved open space. They also all are adjacent to the dining halls. There seclusion from upper class dorms as well as their proximity to their dining hall create a community which centers around the paved space.

Creating a Community

I then began to look at the formation of this community. What is most interesting is that individuals come to RPI with little or no connections to any other person coming to RPI. Then within one week before classes various organizations such as the Office of First Year Experience as well as Residence Life. These two groups together create bonding situations for the new inhabitants of freshman hill trying to create a sense of community within the group. They put together events such as the freshman olympics. At this even the individual dorms are meant to ban together to act as one to compete against the other dorms in such events as vollyball, puzzles, and banner making. They try to make the students feel welcome and like they are part of something.

The first diagram maps out the proximity of the dorms and their location on campus.













The second diagram maps out the week before classes which has events that attempt to link the freshmen as a community.













The third diagram maps out who exactly is working with the freshman to create this company. It shows the various parts of Residence life, showing the break down of the student community and their relationship to the freshmen within the dorms.