Central has added a program to campus this year called the Sophomore Year Experience (SYE).

The new SYE program focuses on ensuring that students in their second year at Central find fulfilling personal development and campus engagement through academic, residential and co-curricular programs.

According to the SYE mission statement, Housing is determined to help students find and utilize their strengths, improve student and faculty engagement, assist students in finding a major, create a stronger community and make navigating through Central easier.

As upperclassmen may have experienced, the second year  at college is much different than the first. Many sophomore students are just starting to figure out their majors and minors, which makes it such an important year. This program is intended to help students find success.

The SYE has put on various events for sophomores throughout the year. Three socials have taken place this year, promoting financial success, academic success and service learning.

The program will also have a “Welcome Back Week,” “Wildcat Student Leadership Program” and “Bucket Lists and Cocoa.” On May 12, sophomores were celebrated with a “Halfway There” graduation event, in which free selfie sticks were handed out to the first 1,000 sophomore students who attended.

“We want to help celebrate students finishing their second year,” Eric Scott, assistant director of SYE, said.

This program hopes to encourage more sophomores to live on campus. According to Scott, many students move off campus after their first year.

“We want to help students know that they are more likely to get a better GPA when living on campus,” Scott said.

Since this is the first year this program has been a part of Central, the administration is still in the process of evaluating the positive and negative results of the SYE program.

Scott also addressed the “sophomore slump,” where students who live on campus their sophomore year see a decrease in academic performance because they are not treated the same way they were in their first year.

The program intends to help sophomores realize that not all second year students have to go through that.

Richard Deshields, associate dean of Student Living, is also a primary advocate for this program.

Deshields has been involved in other campus programs, such as the re-opening of Green Hall. This program is expected to maintain the connection between sophomore students and Central, while helping second year students succeed.