Student Life

A FOCUS on Community Service

by Zachariah Baker

Tufts University offers some optional pre-orientation programs for incoming freshmen. One of these is called FOCUS: The Freshman Orientation CommUnity Service pre-orientation program, and it is awesome.

About 100 incoming first-year students participate in the FOCUS program and arrive at Tufts a week before other freshmen do. FOCUS consists of a weeklong trip during which you participate in serving the local community with a group of between seven to ten of your classmates. Each trip has a certain community service theme: urban beautification, kids, environment, homelessness, or hunger. Freshmen choose the project in which they want to participate before arriving at Tufts.

When FOCUS participants first arrive on campus, they participate in ice breakers and spend their first night in the recently built Gantcher Sports Complex. The next morning, freshmen break into their groups and go to the sites where they will be performing their community service activities. There are a variety of tasks that freshmen perform, depending on the project. These tasks include painting, building, sorting food, preparing meals, serving food, playing with kids, picking up litter, and many other activities. While doing these activities, a very strong bond grows between the group members. Many will continue be friends once college starts and will feel much more comfortable as a result.

FOCUS is a great chance to meet other students before university-wide orientation begins.

A part of the FOCUS program is an introduction to Boston. FOCUS students spend a day in the city and it is a great opportunity to explore the city, learn how to travel using public transportation, visit some of the many cultural and historical attractions, and most importantly, have fun! This aspect of FOCUS provides an excellent introduction to Boston and what it has to offer.

FOCUS provides the opportunity not only to become familiar with Tufts and Boston, but it gives you the chance to form lasting friendships with other first-year students. On move in day, a lot of the typical anxiety surrounding living in a new place, meeting new people, and other worries, will not be as great because you have already had an introduction to Tufts. FOCUS is an unbelievable experience and I strongly encourage you to participate if you enroll at Tufts.

Zachariah Baker is a sophomore from Woodridge, NY and attended Fallsburg High School.