Second Year Experience hosted the “Sophomore September Resource Fair” on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. Rooms 204 and 210 in the Bloomberg Student Center were home to an exhibition of the varied Hopkins facilities available for its second-year students. This year’s fair – the first of its kind held at Hopkins – contained enough booths to fill two rooms. It was dedicated to providing students with the opportunity to learn more about how they could make full use of the University’s student-focused assets.
Open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., sophomores navigated table after table to have one-on-one interactions with representatives for services ranging from Study Abroad, PAVA, the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, the Center for Social Concern and more.
Students could get a better understanding of the research opportunities available from the tables of the Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity (URSCA) and the Hopkins Office for Undergraduate Research (HOUR). The latter’s stall featured a chance to make custom ‘HOUR’ buttons to pin on shirts.
The event featured opportunities to learn more about dining and transportation services. Current sophomores, who will need to move off-campus next year, had access to tables with information about on and off-campus housing.
Further than a basic rundown of their functions and roles, the officials for each of the facilities shared upcoming events to keep an eye on, such as the Life Design Lab’s annual Future Fest, which aims to display potential future career paths and employers to students, or the Center for Diversity and Inclusion’s multicultural meet-and-greet, which hopes to encourage a spirit of unity.
The stands featured a plethora of free goodies: from lanterns to stress toys to screen cleaners, sophomores could fill their bags (also given for free) at each station. Many also took flyers or pamphlets explaining further details or key information regarding each service available. In addition, students were given ‘bingo cards’ that they could get marked at each stall, encouraging attendees to engage with all the tables at the fair.
Students interviewed by The News-Letter reported finding the representatives exceedingly approachable and inviting, expressing the benefit of the event for the wider student body. Giacomo Rossi, a sophomore majoring in Economics and Public Health, shared his thoughts in an interview with The News-Letter.
“I’ve found out that there’s a ton of resources available to not just sophomores, but to every Hopkins student.” Rossi added, “I think if it was advertised a bit more, then there might have been even more students attending.”
A pair of graduate students, Kaitlyn Grosh and Anne Jean Baptiste, corroborated this sentiment in an interview with The News-Letter, further mentioning the warm nature of officials running the booths.
“I actually just stumbled upon this looking for a study space. And I'm really glad I did, because it was very informative, and everybody was very kind and showed us several resources,” Grosh described. “I think it heavily aims undergraduates obviously. [If] we had something similar for graduate students, like [a fair promoting] graduate student housing, [it] could be good.”
Baptiste agreed with Grosh, yet expressed her satisfaction that the fair still provided them with resources.
“I was really happy with [The Fair and The Representatives]. I think they could advertise it to more students,” Baptiste said. “[The representatives] didn't immediately turn us away once we told them we’re post-bac students. They found ways or things that could still apply to us and were still really helpful.”
Emiley Dionne, the Assistant Director for Second-Year Experience, shared some of her inspiration for the event in an email to The News-Letter.
“During the first year, Blue Jays have focused programming to help acclimate them to Hopkins and life as a college student. The second year, there is a drop off in what is available specifically for them as we welcome them back to campus.” Dionne further described, “The Resource Fair was organized as a way to encourage students to build their Hopkins network even further and explore different opportunities that would deepen the learning they get in the classroom.”
Dionne further confirmed more events like the Resource Fair in upcoming years.
“We will be building Sophomore September as a tradition moving forward, including the Resource Fair. With this as the first year of the Second Year Experience program, we’re inviting students to join us for several advisory meetings during fall semester to listen to feedback and their ideas on what they’re hoping to see!“
