Residential Education
Creative Thought Matters where you live, too
At Skidmore College, where you live is part of what you learn. Creative Thought Matters shows up beyond coursework — in the roommate conversation you don’t avoid, the perspective you hadn’t considered, the problem you work through, and the choices you make about what kind of neighbor you want to be.
You'll gain life-long skills
Residential Life adds structure and support to those everyday experiences. Living
on campus gives students repeated opportunities to communicate, make decisions, take
responsibility, build relationships, and become more independent.
Navigate differences
Living with others brings different habits, identities, perspectives, and expectations
into daily life. Students practice listening, communicating clearly, working through
conflict, and considering how their choices affect others.
Take greater responsibility
Students make decisions about their routines, relationships, shared spaces, priorities,
and wellbeing. Over time, they learn to connect those choices to their values and
their responsibility to the community around them.
Use support effectively
Students build self-awareness by recognizing when they need help and taking responsibility
for their own success and wellbeing. Support is built into residential life, but students
learn to speak up, ask for help, and build a network they can rely on.
From an intentional system
Shared expectations, reflection, programs, and community experiences turn everyday
campus life into repeated opportunities to practice communication, responsibility,
self-awareness, and engagement with others.
Your support staff
RAs and CAs play especially important roles. They get to know residents, help establish
expectations for living together, facilitate conversations, bring people together,
and connect students with campus resources. Their job isn’t to manage students’ lives;
it’s to help students develop the skills to manage more for themselves.
Your evolving launch pad
By senior year, the goal isn’t to need less support. It’s to know what you can
handle on your own, when to reach out, and how to build the network you need. As you
mature, options expand for more privacy, responsibility, and practice for independent
living.
Your special interests
Students who want to build their residential experience around a shared interest,
identity, or way of living can choose a Special Interest Community. These communities
offer another way to connect what matters to you with where you live and the people
you live alongside.
Make campus home
Explore Skidmore’s residence halls, apartments, and the communities students create
within them.
Explore Skidmore housing