Students play corn hole

Get familiar with Ball State and earn a college credit before your courses even start with our Early Start Program in College Prep 101.

With no more than 15 students per class, this three-day, one-credit course is designed to enable you to make friends and interact with some of Ball State's favorite professors as you explore various topics. Direct any questions you may have to Keith Norris in First Year Experience, 765-285-5479.

Program Dates

Program Dates:  August 2025 - specific dates will be updated in April 

Please note that four other Summer Bridge Programs – Accelerate, Cardinal Leadership and Service Seminar (CLASS), Connecting Accessible Resources with Disability Services (CARDS), and REACH – take place during the same dates as Early Start, so if you are registering for this program, you cannot register as a participant in any of the other four.

Program Fee

$135.00 (includes meals, lodging, and activities)

Registration

Registration will open on April 4, 2025.

College Prep 101 Topics

In this workshop, students will create fun designs using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Students will learn the intricacies of this software and also get to work with related technologies.

In this fun and engaging workshop, students will explore fundamental communication processes, examine strategies for thriving in a technology-focused world, and review the various types of social media permeating their daily lives. As a culminating experience, all students will dive deeply into a selected social media. Students will also be introduced to cutting-edge technologies Ball State provides to support learning. This workshop is an excellent choice for all majors.

Let an expert address your college concerns and answer all of your questions before you begin classes. Students will learn how to decipher a syllabus, discover the best practices for organization, write professional emails, communicate effectively with faculty, discuss critically thinking, and become familiar with college life.

In this three-day workshop, students will explore issues in criminal justice through discussion of current research in tandem with portrayals in popular culture. No technology is required, but students are encouraged to bring a laptop or tablet.

Learn the basics of wildlife conservation education and rehabilitation, including what can be done to educate people of all ages, various wildlife and citizen science apps, and what to do if you find an injured or orphaned baby animal.

Worried or nervous about your Fall 2024 math class? This is the workshop for you! Designed for students taking MATH 110, 112, 113 and 114, 132, 161, or 165, students will use adaptive software to work on unfinished learning in their math skill sets. Students will retest using ALEKS PPL and may be able to enter into the next math course. Faculty will also provide general study skill techniques and strategies to help students have a great start at Ball State University!
In this workshop, students will use creative writing to explore campus as well as their responses to this exciting new chapter in their lives. Each day will begin with a brief introduction to a new writing technique before we journey through campus to observe and record impressions. Then students will craft their own responses to our field studies and share these responses with their classmates. Types of writing we will explore include ekphrastic poetry in response to a visit to the David Owsley Museum of Art, journaling as part of a walking tour of campus and Christy Woods, and short fiction featuring a specific space on campus.

Get a glimpse of the business of television news from a TV news veteran. Students will have the opportunity to visit a working professional TV newsroom, create a news story, and develop a mini-newscast. This workshop will include a field trip to an Indianapolis television station.

Art is Life! In this workshop, held entirely at BSU’s David Owsley Museum of Art, students will learn a variety of new ways to bring art into their lives. How can it help us discover who we are? How can it help us connect to others? How does it connect to your major and future plans? This is an interactive, social workshop that will have us looking, playing, thinking, and seeing in new ways. We’ll try a variety of off-beat approaches to thinking through art, do some creating, and make some new friends.
Itinerary for 2024
  • Morning/Afternoon – Check in and move into residence halls
  • Evening – Welcome session and evening activities
  • Morning – Class session and workshops
  • Afternoon – Tours and activities
  • Evening – Social activities and recreation
  • Morning – Class session and workshops
  • Afternoon – Tours and activities
  • Evening – Social activities and recreation
  • Morning – Class session and workshops
  • Afternoon – Tours and activities

For More Information

Contact Keith Norris in first-year experience at ksnorris@bsu.edu