FAQs

Each of the College Park Scholars programs have offices located throughout the Cambridge Community.

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College students usually take five to six classes a semester. When you’re in Scholars, one or two of those classes will pertain to your Scholars program. The nice thing with this, though, is that the supporting courses in Scholars usually satisfy some kind of graduation requirement — general education, major requirement or an elective. This means colloquium is typically the only course on your schedule that you wouldn’t be taking if you weren’t in Scholars.

Aside from the academic requirements, the time commitment of Scholars is what you make of it. Some students choose to volunteer for opportunities within Scholars that involve them more with their programs and the greater Scholars community. They may therefore join our Scholars Ambassadors program, the Scholars Advisory Board or Lakeland STARs tutoring program. Some students will attend Scholars extracurricular activities, such as movie screenings, ice cream socials and panel events. Ultimately, the level of involvement in College Park Scholars is determined by each individual student.

Yes! Any major can participate in any Scholars program. In fact, we encourage students to choose a Scholars program different from their major, as this will allow for greater opportunities for interdisciplinary study. It also means students are more likely to be exposed to differing perspectives in their classroom discussions. We have had biology and pre-med students as Arts Scholars, and business majors as Media, Self and Society Scholars, for example. (Engineering majors have enrolled in all 11 programs!)

In some ways, your Scholars program can act like a minor, supplementing your major courses with something else that you may be interested in learning more about.

Whether you choose a Scholars program that supplements your major or one that is completely different from your core studies, what’s most important is that you are academically curious, looking to explore interdisciplinary interests.

Not at all. Beyond colloquium, students take all of their classes with other University of Maryland students. Further, most students join clubs or organizations on campus that allow them to make friends with all kinds of people. The Scholars program will be just one (fantastic!) aspect of their college career.

College Park Scholars is also located on North Campus, where most freshmen reside. Living next to other residence communities — and near Maryland Stadium, Eppley Recreation Center and North Campus Diner —Scholars students will have many opportunities to interact with non-Scholars students.

Scholars welcomes students requesting roommates who are not in the program, but we have a strong preference that you reside in the Cambridge Community. Please note that some non-Scholars roommate requests will not be possible because of requirements in other living-learning and special programs. 

No, they do not – but they are welcome to return if they wish. There will be space reserved for them in the residence halls for their sophomore year.

We welcome commuter students as a valued and active part of our community.

We strongly recommend that students live with Scholars in the Cambridge Community in order to get the full living-learning experience, but it is not required. If you do not wish to live in the Cambridge Community then you will need to specify otherwise to reslife@umd.edu.

Yes. We are very supportive of students in different Scholars programs being roommates. You will be able to search for roommates in Scholars via the Roommate Finder in your Resident Life portal beginning in June. 

Our 13 programs have program offices in the five residence halls of the Cambridge Community. We make every effort to assign students to the buildings where their program offices are located (depending on space availability). 

We encourage you to attend an Admitted Student Open House. The Department of Resident Life will offer tours of the Cambridge Community residence halls and you will be able to see a representative room.

They can vary across programs, but typically, it is a 90 minute to 2 hour weekly seminar class. It is almost like a “homeroom” that includes community building, activities, guest speakers, simulations, etc. You can learn more about colloquiums by exploring program pages.

Each Scholars program has its own curriculum based on the topic area it covers. You can look at each program’s page on our website (scholars.umd.edu), where they list out the supporting courses that may be required.