What is O-Week?

Something marvelous happens every August at Rice University: O-Week (short for “Orientation Week”). While plenty of other schools offer an orientation program, Rice’s O-Week is so much more than a first introduction to Rice University and Brown College. During the course of the week, you’ll be immersed in a community that will guide you in your exploration in every way imaginable. 

You will hear speeches from the President, the Dean of Undergraduates, and various faculty that will welcome you and inspire and encourage you for your years at Rice and beyond. You will also learn about all the academic opportunities Rice has to offer and register for your classes for the semester after consulting peers, professors, and staff from the Office of Academic Advising in order to create the schedule best suited for your passions and interests. However, O-Week isn’t just about speeches and academics; it is also full of exciting events with fellow Brownies and with students from other residential colleges.

After moving in at the beginning of the week, you’ll get to participate in activities like ice-breakers, late night food runs, impossibly ridiculous tasks, as well as some of the favorite Brown and Rice traditions, just to give you a glimpse. Rice students are so passionate about the preservation of Rice’s culture that many dedicated upperclassmen, who are called Advisors, give up weeks of their summers to come back early to help integrate you into our family. You may not know them yet, but they know you and have been waiting to meet you for weeks!

During O-Week, you will meet an abundance of new people. However, you will do most of your O-Week activities with your amazing O-Week group! Each group has a name, which is a clever pun based on the theme. Your O-Week group will be together most of the time during O-Week, and will also continue to do things together and stay involved with each other throughout the year. At Brown, there are 12 different O-Week groups, each with about 7-8 new students. Each group also has a 4 person Advising team with at least 2 Advisors and a Co-Advisor, and some of the groups have an Affiliate, who are all current Rice students.

Welcome to Rice University, Brown College, and RodeO-Week!