The “Living Your Freshmen Experience” (LYFE) program, directed by the housing staff in Ellender Hall, encourages all incoming freshmen in Ellender Hall to participate in social and academic events in order to make the college transition as easy and exciting as possible.

Ellender Hall’s Housing Representatives created the LYFE program three years ago to provide freshmen students the opportunity to get more involved in their new university, while making friends in the process.

According to the LYFE program PULSE Leader Position Description, “Housing & Residence Life at Nicholls State University strives to offer residential students a living environment which supports their intellectual, emotional, physical and social development and contributes to their academic and personal success.”

Through the LYFE program, all freshmen in Ellender Hall are assigned to one of the PULSE Leaders, which stand for Peers Utilizing LYFE Skills Education. Residing in Ellender Hall, these staff members dedicate much of their time to provide the freshmen with advice, friendship and encouragement, socially and academically. Also stated in the LYFE program PULSE Leader Position Description, “The relationship between the Peer Mentor and the new student gives them a sense of being connected to the larger community where they may other feel lost.”

Ellender Hall conducts a large variety of events and activities to enhance their student’s social skills during the semester. Among many, the freshmen’s favorites seemed to be Welcome Back Night, Karaoke Sing-a-Longs, Ice Cream socials and Grocery Bingo Night. Such events comprised the Welcome Week Activities, part of the LYFE program.
Logan Williams, a current freshmen Culinary major, explained that she even participated in singing Karaoke in the hopes to break out of her shell. Angel Burgess, biology major, said, “We are going to try to go to as many events as possible.”
The LYFE Program also encourages students to play relationship-building- games for them to gain insight about themselves and others. Amy Hebert, coordinator of the Academic Advising Center, expressed her support for these types of games such as “Judging the Roommate” and “What Animal Are You?”.
Aside from social events, the LYFE program also provides academic activities as well. PULSE leaders coordinate tutoring and study groups at different times throughout the week. Also, for the third year in a row, Hebert offered a University Prep 101 course to students in Ellender Hall.
She further explained that this class is very limited and seats get taken instantly. The class is instructed by Dr. Hebert and is on Wednesday afternoons at 4:30.
“It’s not a huge class, which is good because with smaller classes, I am able to pay more attention to the students and their specific needs,” Hebert said.
In the future, she hopes to be able to offer more University Prep 101 courses to other resident houses.
The LYFE Program has received a lot of praise and recognition in the past few years. The housing department won an award after they presented the LYFE program to a National Conference for residence life staff. This national recognition proved to many people that this program is beneficial to all freshmen students.