Rather than spending your last few days before Orientation at home biting your nails, packing and repacking, attend THE BEST Pre-Orientation Trip! On the Clarkson University Outing Club (CUOC) Pre-Orientation Trips, our trained student leaders will guide you through the beautiful wilderness of the Adirondack Park in Northern New York for four days and three nights. We have trips for every skill level, and you are certain to make lifelong friends, learn about the Clarkson experience from upperclass students, get a head start on college life and even move into your residence hall room early!

Each trip group comprises of four to six incoming students and two upperclass-student trip leaders (three upperclass-student trip leaders for rock climbing trips, four upperclass-students for Mountain Biking). Please note that trip assignments are made on a first-come, first-served basis. Depending on who registers, you may sleep in a tent with people of the same gender or a different gender than your own.*

*Please note that there has never been a trip in the past that only had one individual of a particular gender on it. We do our best to ensure that everyone is comfortable on their trips; however because we sleep in lean-to’s and have minimal tent allowances (NY DEC guidelines) sleeping either individually or gender exclusive is not always possible.

Students attending trips move into their rooms early on Monday, August 21st, and arrive back to campus on Friday, August 25th, just in time for Orientation. We even provide a special orientation for your family/supporters when you arrive so that they do not need to make a separate trip to Clarkson.

Each trip costs $260, which includes an on-campus picnic lunch for you and two family members, a super cool T-shirt to commemorate your trip, all transportation and food costs during the trip, a post-trip cookout exclusively for trip attendees, and extensively trained Wilderness First Responder student trip leaders.

NOTE: Students who are a part of The Clarkson School or Honors Program are NOT eligible for these pre-Orientation activities because they have their own Orientation trip taking place at the same time and unfortunately aren’t as cool.*

*We do super fun trips throughout the semester so even if you cannot go on a Pre-O trip (which you still should) you still have the chance to try all of these activities!