By Myrica Hawker

Make new friends so you'll have someone to hang out with when you get in a fight with your roommate. Earn an "easy" two credits and give your GPA a fighting chance at being good. Get familiar with campus so you're one of the few freshmen who can interpret the "ESLC" and "PSYAL" building abbreviations on your schedule.

These are just a few of the incentives for attending Utah State's Connections program.

Connections, formerly called Survival, is a week of classes and activities designed to familiarize students with academic and social life at USU. La Vell Saunders organized the program in 1981. It began as a workshop with about 33 students attending. Since then, more than 10,000 students have participated.

About 50 percent of incoming freshmen take advantage of this program each year.

"Connections students tend to be more involved, use more resources and are more satisfied with their university experience," said Director of the Academic Resource Center Noelle Call, who has helped run the program for 15 years.

The 2003 syllabus explains the goals of the Connection program as familiarizing students with services and resources available at Utah State, the location of buildings on campus, and university policies and procedures, as well as introducing "college level study skills."

Kellie Samuelson, 18, of Centerville, Utah, said she learned her way around campus, how to budget money and how to manage her time. Time management is an important lesson for freshmen because "programming yourself to do a lot of hours of homework" is one of the most difficult parts of the transition between high school and college, Samuelson said.

Eric Allsop, 18, of Bountiful, Utah, said the classes taught him learning skills like note-taking, explained university rules he was unfamiliar with and made him aware of the available organizations and services on campus.

Allsop said one of the major problems freshmen encounter is not taking enough time to study. The Connections classes made study recommendations.

Reasons for wanting to go to Connections vary by student, but most agree it was a good experience. According to a survey after Connections 2002, more than 90 percent rated the program as being somewhat or very helpful.

Allsop said he attended Connections because it is a two-credit class that he described as an "easy 'A.'"

"I wanted to move in a week early. I wanted to meet a lot of people and really feel comfortable at this college before school started," Samuelson said, adding that she would recommend the Connections program to other freshmen.

Samuelson thought Connections was helpful because she had a whole week before the semester started to settle in, which she said was less stressful.

Emily Tereu, 19, of Farmington, Utah, didn't attend Connections, but because of what Tereu's friends said about Connections, she doesn't wish she had.

"They said it got really, really boring by the end, but they were glad they got settled," Tereu said.

There were around 30 Connections classes this year, with between 30 and 35 students in each class. Classes were Aug. 18-22, with two follow-up classes later in the semester. But the program is not all work, with optional evening activities such as dinners, a movie and a dance.

There is no tuition charge for Connections when it is part of the 12 to 18 credit tier of tuition, but the program does have a $50 fee that covers the activities, as well as two meals during the week.

Assignments for the course include library, computer and time management exercises, as well as papers about the mandatory university cultural event attendance and service activity.

"Across the country, educators concerned about the first-year students' transition to higher education emulate Survival as a model program," Call said.

Saunders won the "Outstanding Freshman Advocate Award" from the National First Year Experience Program in 1998 for his work with the Survival program, Call said.

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