Orientation begins the Saturday at the end of August before classes begin the following Thursday. This five-day program officially welcomes new students to Grinnell College and allows them to begin their transition to college. There are many social activities for first-year students to get to know their classmates and some upperclassmen. The first academic advising meeting occurs during orientation, followed by course registration. The New Student Orientation schedule is available here: New Student Orientation

Grinnell has an individually advised curriculum, which means that there are no core distribution requirements. Students are given the flexibility to design their own liberal arts education taking those classes that most interest them as well as classes that spark new academic interests.

The individually advised curriculum is not designed for a student to be singularly focused, nor does it mean that students choose their classes independently. There is a strong emphasis on advising at Grinnell. Faculty and students work closely together to plan a program that has the necessary breadth and depth but is also individual enough to incorporate the student's passions. The faculty adviser ensures that students take classes in as many departments as they can fit into their schedule and keeps them on track to graduate in four years. If students ever struggle academically, they can turn to their adviser for help with developing more effective study skills.

The First-Year Tutorial, the only required class that every student must take in their first semester at Grinnell, provides students with an introduction to the academic expectations at Grinnell. Each tutorial is an interdisciplinary, seminar-style class limited to thirteen students. Some tutorials that were offered recently include: Weird Music; Explaining Happiness; Community Organizing: Empowering People, Effecting Change; and Baseball: Its Literature, Science, and Societal Impact. Thus, the tutorial topics vary, but they all focus on key elements that students will encounter in all of their Grinnell coursework: writing, critical thinking, and oral presentation. The professor of the student's First-Year Tutorial also serves as the student's first adviser.