LIFE (Learning Integrated Freshman Experience)

LIFE is an academic first-year experience for college students at UD. This year, over 1,700 freshmen participated in LIFE. LIFE freshmen form a small learning community organized around several of their courses (in which the students are co-enrolled), an academic theme, and out-of-class experiences related to those courses and themes.  At UD, the LIFE courses and experiences are known as LIFE clusters: they involve the integration of a variety of experiences centered on academic material. Some clusters are focused on specific majors or careers; others have a more general focus.

Most clusters require that the students involved also live together, although there are occasionally clusters without the residential requirement. First-year students are assigned to each cluster and to the same residence hall community (where the cluster is residential), and these students are also co-enrolled in the cluster courses, as well as a co-curricular course, University 101, First-Year Experience (a one-credit, P/F seminar). 

Each cluster has a Peer Mentor, an advanced undergraduate student who helps students make the adjustment to the academic life of the university, facilitates UNIV 101, and, in general, ensures seriousness of purpose and academic quality in the co-curricular experiences of the LIFE students.  Each cluster also has a LIFE Mentor, who provides counsel for the cluster and helps the Peer Mentor and students in the cluster explore academic issues related to the cluster theme.

Look at what two former Peer Mentors are doing:
http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2007/may/seniors050407.html