8th Grade Opening Day Schedule

High School Dance Opening Day Schedule

High School Drama Opening Day Schedule

High School Music Opening Day Schedule

High School Visual Arts Opening Day Schedule

High School Parents Opening Day Schedule

College Students Opening Day Schedule

College Parents Opening Day Schedule

DP Graduate Students Orientation Schedule

Film Graduate Students Orientation Schedule

Academic Calendar

Orientation Is Community Building
Whether you enter NCSA as a high school, college or graduate student, you are becoming part of a community of artists. New Student Orientation is geared toward helping you become acclimated to your new living and learning community, and supporting your success in this vibrant and intense environment. Your first days at NCSA will be packed with meetings, appointments and events so that once classes begin, you can focus on learning and creating.

If you have applied or been accepted, please check this web site often throughout the summer for the most up-to-date information. In early August, you will receive a mailing with additional information and forms that must be returned prior to your arrival. As the time for New Student Orientation draws near, this website will contain schedules for students and parents, information about accommodations in Winston-Salem, and helpful links.

We look forward to your arrival at NCSA!

More than half of the high school student population is new to NCSA each year, making orientation a major event. New students devote their first days on campus to settling in, making new friends, and finding their way around campus. They undergo placement tests and academic program planning, and are introduced to services provided by Semans Library, the Wellness Center, the Fitness Center, and NCSA Police. Policies, rules and regulations, and the honor code are explained. A special course for new students helps build life skills and provides tools for making healthy decisions. Individual art schools may have meetings, screenings or other activities. To round out the orientation experience, a healthy dose of social activities is offered to help new and returning students create a new community of artists.

Approximately 275 new college students arrive at NCSA each fall. A team of returning student volunteers welcomes the new students, helps residential students move in to their rooms, and introduces new students to the campus culture.

College students spend their first days on campus learning their way around, making new friends, and settling into their new community. Placement tests, academic program planning, and meetings with art faculty are scheduled, as are introductory sessions for Semans Library, the Wellness Center, the Fitness Center, NCSA Police, career services and financial aid. Policies, rules and regulations are explained at residence hall meetings and at larger town meetings. Social events provide opportunities for students to meet peers in all disciplines, helping to create a vibrant and healthy community of artists.

Each year, approximately 50 students enter NCSA’s graduate programs in Design and Production, Filmmaking and Music. The office of New Student Orientation works closely with each art school to tailor graduate student orientation programs to its specific needs. Realizing that graduate students may have multiple demands on their time, the faculty and staff work to streamline the orientation schedule, while providing all the necessary information and ample opportunities for meeting peers and program faculty. On a campus brimming with students as young as 13, it is important that graduate students feel a sense of community with each other.

Parents of high school and college students are part of the NCSA community, and special orientation events are planned just for them. Parents have opportunities on each opening day to meet with NCSA administrators, art school and academic program administrators and faculty, and each other. Through an optional extended one-day orientation, parents interact with counselors, health-care providers, and others to learn about health and wellness of the artistic student, long-distance communication, letting go, and helping students cope in their new community.


Contact:
For more information about New Student Orientation, please contact:
Lauren Whitaker
Director of Student Activities, New Student Orientation and Transportation Services
whital@ncarts.edu
(336)770-3283