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Orientation

Q: When is orientation? What parts of orientation do I need to attend?

Orientation begins over the summer with virtual information sessions and concludes with in-person sessions in late August. Here is a link to the Welcome Week schedule for 2023 to give you a sense of the programs we offer to new students joining our community. The schedule for Welcome Week 2024 will be finalized and updated in the spring of 2024. 

During orientation you will learn about your academic program, meet faculty and staff, meet your classmates, and learn important information that will be essential to your studies at Cooper. You will continue to receive a great deal of information from both your academic program and the office of student affairs regarding orientation. 

International students attend both the general orientation and the international student orientation. The International Orientation is a separate session with a mandatory check-in that must be made with your DSO. The ISSO advisor will send you all the information before your arrival in the U.S. Our ISSO orientation will prepare you for the cultural transition and provide you with very important information on how to maintain your visa status while you’re in the U.S. You must bring your passport and provide your local N.Y. address and phone number during this session. 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.