First-Year Student Resources

Welcome to Queen’s!

As a first-year student, your focus will be on making the transition to university-level academic expectations and academic writing. You probably have a lot of questions!

We offer many resources to support you in your first year, including:

Academics 101 covers everything you want to know about making the transition to university, from workload to exam prep (and everything in-between)
The First 6 Weeks covers some quick tips on how to make the most of those most influential first weeks at university
Handouts to help you write university essays and assignments, such as What Makes an “A” Paper, How to Develop a Thesis Statement, How to Avoid Plot Summary in an English Essay, and Conventions of Science Writing. See all of our available handouts here.

We also encourage all students, including first-years, to take advantage of our in-person services:

Attend a workshop, including the popular ‘Making the Grade: The Transition from High School to University’
meet one-on-one with a Learning Strategies advisor to design a customized plan based on your situation and preferences for whatever academic concerns you have
Course-specific, discipline-specific, and general writing workshops. The Fall workshop schedule will be posted here and you can register for open workshops here (classroom workshops are available only to those registered in those courses).
1:1 appointments with professional writing consultants – 50-minute and 25-minutes appointments are available. See here for how to book an appointment.
1:1 drop-in sessions with Peer Writing Assistants. These 25-minute consultations allow you to discuss writing issues with and ask questions of trained peers. Read more about these sessions here (under Peer Writing Assistants).
1:1 consultations with the ESL Coordinator which focus on writing, speaking, listening, and reading skills

You are always welcome to connect with us on social media and ask questions via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or email us with your concerns.