The journey for new students begins this week with Orientation 2012, Aug. 17-21, and more than 100 events introducing first-year and transfer students to the diverse scope of the university, from courses to gorges.

"We want to help make their transition as seamless as possible, both academically and socially, help them find connections, and get them on the road toward finding their academic niche," said Carol Grumbach, associate dean of New Student Programs, the office overseeing Orientation and other programs throughout students' first year on North Campus.

Orientation Week introduces new students to the array of campus resources and academic, intellectual, cultural, well-being, co-curricular and social opportunities available to them. These include diversity/inclusion programs and "Real Students, Reel Stories," a film with Cornell students interviewed about their freshman experiences; music auditions; advice on using the TCAT bus system; and introductions to libraries, colleges, departments and more. New Student Reading Project events are Aug. 19-20.

Dean of Students Kent Hubbell also prepared video messages sent to first-year and transfer students.

A new mobile Web app lists all Orientation events universitywide and by each of the seven colleges; tags required events, lists campus resources and links users to the class's #Cornell2016 Twitter feed.

An army of student volunteers helps things run smoothly -- more than 800 volunteers will help the 3,800 families coming to campus on move-in day, Aug. 17. A 15-student Orientation Steering Committee organizes events, and 450 volunteers will be matched with six to eight new students from their college to help with the transition to life at Cornell, Grumbach said.

Orientation highlights:

On Aug. 18, President David Skorton and student leaders will welcome new arrivals at the New Student Convocation, 8:45 a.m. in Schoellkopf Stadium.

"Four Steps to Happiness at Cornell" offers tips for academic and social success, Aug. 19, 1 p.m. in Appel Commons.

The Cornell University Block Party, Aug. 19, 5-8 p.m. on Donlon Circle, features live music, games and the best of Cornell Dining. Rain locations: Robert Purcell Community Center, Appel Commons.

Research opportunities are explained Aug. 20 in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium in programs for transfer students at 11 a.m. and undergraduates at 1 p.m.

Faculty members will lead a variety of Explore! workshops Aug. 21, on courses including Hip Hop: Beats, Rhymes and Life; Networks; and Ethical Issues in Health and Medicine.

A "Declassified Cornell Survival Guide," Aug. 21, 3-6 p.m. at Robert Purcell Community Center, will help demystify Cornell acronyms, navigating the campus and more.

Reading project

The 2012 New Student Reading Project selection, read over the summer by incoming freshmen and transfer students, is Romain Gary's 1975 novel "The Life Before Us," the story of an illiterate Arab boy and the Auschwitz survivor who raised him. Students will attend small-group discussions led by faculty and staff, and one of six Cornell Contexts presentations,

• Cornell Cinema and film faculty present "A World of Difference on Screen: 'Madame Rosa' and Other Cinematic Representations of Cultural Difference" in Uris Auditorium.

• "Alternate Views of Deviant Human Behavior," a lecture by Steve Ceci, the 
Helen R. Carr Professor of Human Development, and Michael Macy,
 the Goldwin Smith Professor
 of Sociology, in Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall.

• "Page to Stage: Dramatizing 'The Life Before Us,'" with Performing and Media Arts faculty Bruce Levitt, Austin Bunn and Carolyn Goelzer, and graduate student Aoise Stratford, in Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.

• "The Jew, the Arab, the Arab-Jew," a lecture by Ross Brann, the 
M.R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies, in Bailey Hall.

• "Crossing Borders," Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Visual analysis and discussion of artworks that span time, geography and cultures, including a special exhibition of photographs and prints depicting 1940s Paris.

• "Medicine and Healing: Navigating Life and Death," a lecture by Stacey Langwick, associate professor of anthropology, in Statler Hall Auditorium.

Information: http://reading.cornell.edu