Senior discovers FYSOP
Christiana Fischer (CAS’07) joins freshmen for a week of community service.
Most students begin their relationship with the First Year Student Outreach Project (FYSOP) — the program that gives incoming Boston University freshmen the opportunity to spend a week becoming connected to their new community through collaborative volunteer service — before they even start classes. FYSOP students often remain active volunteers during their BU careers through the program’s parent organization, the Community Service Center. However, Christiana Fischer (CAS’07), a FYSOP coordinator, went about her FYSOP experience a bit backwards.
Fischer decided against participating in FYSOP when she started at the University as a freshman, but joined the Community Service Center volunteer ranks in the fall. She was a committed volunteer through her sophomore year and became the program manager of the center’s Making Music program junior year. Only now, the summer before her senior year, has Fischer gotten involved in FYSOP.
“I want to seize the opportunity before it’s lost,” she says. “I didn’t have it my freshman year, and now I know how important it really is.”
The benefits of FYSOP are threefold. First, students learn about some of the issues that affect Boston, such as hunger and homelessness, and work to improve conditions in those areas. Second, the freshmen get the chance to become acclimated to their new environment a week before the rest of the students move on campus. Finally, and perhaps most important, FYSOP participants forge lasting friendships during their week of service, an especially important feature for new students who most likely do not know anyone at BU.
When this year’s FYSOP week is over, Fischer will spend her final year at BU continuing to be active in the CSC as community outreach program manager, in addition to bartending at the BU Pub.