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\nCollege can be a scary place, especially for new students adjusting to navigating class schedules, meeting new people, working with advisers and managing their time, all while making good grades.<\/em>
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![\"For](\"http:\/\/features.clemson.edu\/creative-services\/files\/2013\/01\/Michael-LaDue.jpg\")
<\/a>\nClemson Housing provides students with support networks to help with these issues by creating communities within residence halls where students with similar interests or academic pursuits live together with access to advisers, resources and special activities.
\nKnown as Living-Learning Communities (LLCs), these communities benefit students both academically and socially.
\n\u201cClemson has invested in our living-learning programs because we feel that they represent a best practice in residential learning,\u201d said Kathy Hobgood, director of residential life. \u201cLLCs connect students to their academics in a way that makes college life more seamless by bringing what they learn in the classroom into their living environments with discussions, resources and staff \u2013 including faculty. This allows for deeper learning, stronger ties to the University and overall greater student success.\u201d
\nClemson opened its first LLC in 2001 with the First Class program for business and engineering majors. There are now 18 LLCs on campus; the goal is to add or enhance two new ones each year through 2020. This year, 1,446 students live in an LLC \u2013 that\u2019s approximately 23 percent of students who live on campus.
\nAccording to the National Study of Living-Learning Programs, more than 60 colleges and universities have living-learning programs. That study, as well as\u00a0U.S.News & World Report<\/em>, named Clemson\u2019s among the nation\u2019s best.
\nPerhaps the best indicator of the effectiveness of LLCs comes from the students who live in them.<\/p>\n
Shauna Young \u2013 Clemson Business Experience
\nJunior, management, North Charleston<\/h4>\n
Shauna Young is convinced that the Clemson Business Experience (CBE) community in Benet Hall is the best place to live on campus. Now in her third year living in the community, she serves as a resident liaison, coordinating activities with the RAs and advisers. Last year, she served as an RA.
\n\u201cI help plan programs, socials, whatever students might need to help them have a better experience,\u201d said Young.
\nYoung has helped plan a field day, a \u201cCake Boss\u201d contest, movie nights and more for her fellow residents. She said these kinds of events help bring everyone on the hall closer together.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve heard from multiple people that Benet Hall is like one big family,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s different. Students just click with one another.\u201d
\nYoung actually had her choice between four different LLCs to live in this year. As a member of Air Force ROTC, she could have lived in that community, and as a CONNECTIONS peer mentor, she could have lived in the new CONNECTIONS LLC as a mentor for freshman minority students. She is also in the Calhoun Honors College, so she could have chosen to live in that community in Holmes Hall. But the sense of family drew her back to Benet for her third year.
\n\u201cI like working with people and having a positive impact,\u201d said Young. \u201cI see my residents from last year, and I know I helped make their experience better than it might have been. That\u2019s the reason I came back this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike DesJardin \u2013 Army ROTC LLC
\nJunior, financial management, Merritt Island, Fla.<\/h4>\n
Mike DesJardin always knew he wanted to join the Army. The son of an Army officer, he was drawn to Clemson by the University\u2019s strong ROTC program and military heritage. When the Army ROTC LLC was created this semester, he couldn\u2019t pass up the opportunity to live among his fellow cadets, but it wasn\u2019t his first time living in an LLC. His first two years were spent in the Clemson Business Experience (CBE) community for students in business majors. Michael LaDue was looking for a way to get outside his comfort zone and learn about other cultures, so he chose to live in the Cultural Exchange Community (CEC) his sophomore year. The community partners American students with international students, something that LaDue feels is mutually beneficial.
\n<\/a>\u201cI figured it would help me academically to live with students in similar majors,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if the Army ROTC community was here then, I would have chosen that.\u201d
\nDesJardin said living in the CBE was particularly helpful when he decided to change his major from political science to financial management in the middle of his freshman year. In his second year living in the CBE, DesJardin became an RA; he is now an RA in the Army ROTC community.
\n\u201cBecause I had worked in the CBE LLC before, I felt like I would be able to bring my experience from that into the new ROTC community,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to make an impact and help make the ROTC LLC better for future cadets.\u201d
\nDesJardin said the camaraderie on the hall is strong, especially for the new cadets, and that it helps to live with someone who is sharing the same experiences.
\n\u201cHaving to get up at 5 a.m. is easier when your roommate is doing it too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\nMichael LaDue \u2013 Cultural Exchange Community
\nSenior, civil engineering, Simpsonville<\/h4>\n
\n\u201cOne of my roommates that year was from India, and it was his first time in America,\u201d LaDue said. \u201cHe had a lot of preconceived notions about America, so I served as a facilitator for him, in a way, to help him separate facts from myths about America. I would also ask him a lot of questions about his culture and religious beliefs, so we learned from each other.\u201d
\nThat same year, LaDue also lived with an Australian and a Belgian. He says the experience helped him prepare for his next big step, a yearlong internship in Haiti with Clemson Engineers for Developing Countries.
\n\u201cBeing in the CEC helped me get a picture of different cultures,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you visit another country, you compare and contrast it with your own culture. Being among lots of different people from different countries, you are able to compare lots of cultures. It helped prepare me to be ready to step outside my own culture and adapt to someone else\u2019s.\u201d
\nLaDue said being in Haiti was an eye-opening experience.
\n\u201cIt was interesting for me to be the foreigner in a country,\u201d said LaDue. \u201cBeing the person who\u2019s the alien, who\u2019s out of place, you get to see your own culture from a different perspective. Coming back, I had some reverse culture-shock. I had gotten so used to being in Haiti.\u201d
\nAfter returning from Haiti, LaDue chose to live his final semester at Clemson back in the CEC. This semester, he\u2019s living with roommates from Germany and Brazil and Ethiopia.
\n\u201cBeing at a university like Clemson is one of the few times in your life when you can be immersed in a multitude of cultures all at once. Your peers are from all over the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\nBrooke Reed \u2013 Health, Education and Human Development LLC
\nSophomore, science teaching (chemistry), Chattanooga, Tenn.<\/h4>\n