For Prospective Students

What is a residential college? The residential college is a living situation which is meant to extend the college learning environment outside the classroom and into the living environment. Centered around themes, these colleges offer programing and social events to further enrich the college experience.

What is CCS's theme? CCS stands for the Residential College of Cultural and Community Studies. We are centered around the idea of community and culture, and examine their impact on our lives CCS strives to explore these themes with trips to different locations in Chicago, firesides, informal chats, tutorials and the recently created Community Service Initiative.

What do all these things mean? Firesides? Some quick definitions related to the residential college system:

Firesides--Informal lectures put on by faculty, fellows, community members or fellow students. These are meant to explore issues or topics which people are interested in.
Forum--Weekly house meeting led by the Executive Board president to inform CCSers of upcoming events, talk about house issues, vote on trips, etc. Basically anything going on at CCS will be discussed at forum. Forums are generally held Sunday nights at 9pm.
Fellows--Northwestern faculty members who are associated with the residential college. They are invited to weekly fellows lunches and to various dorm events, where the student/professor relationship is broken down and they are allowed to interact in a more informal setting.
Points--Many events associated with CCS will have a corresponding points value (for example, attending weekly forum gives you 4 points). Points are used to determine housing priority for the next year. CCSers who wish to return to CCS must accumulate 80 points during the year. The CCSer with the most points gets to pick his or her room first, followed by the CCSer with the second most points, etc.
Tutorials--Credit-bearing classes offered in the residential college, usually related to its theme, which are taught in a more informal setting to further span the gap of classroom and living space. These tutorials are taught by fellows and are generally very small, discussion-based classes.