What is a residential college?
The residential college is a living situation that is meant to extend the college learning environment outside the classroom and into the living environment. Centered around themes, these colleges offer programming and social events to further enrich the college experience.
What is CCS’s theme?
CCS stands for the Residential College of Cultural and Community Studies. As the name states, we are centered around the idea of sharing community and culture, and examining their impact on our lives. CCS strives to explore these themes with trips to different locations in Chicago, firesides, informal chats, tutorials, and the recently created Community Service Initiative.
What to look forward to
Check out our events! Here are some highlights:
During Wildcat Welcome: activities to get to know your fellow CCSers! Past activities have included things like barbecues and game nights.
After Wildcat Welcome:
- RCB Formal: RCB offers a trip to a cool event venue in Chicago for a night of dancing and fun! CCS heavily subsidizes or completely covers tickets.
- Fellows Lunch: Get to know our faculty fellows over a meal at Sarge. CCS shares a private dining room with Slivka!
- Weekly Munchies: CCSers buy snacks each week for us all to enjoy.
- Firesides: Learn about interesting things like wilderness survival, black holes, or 20th-century children’s literature from fellows and students.
- Trips with fellows to neighborhoods in Chicago, like Argyle, Pilsen, and Chinatown
- Excursions into Chicago: Ice skating in Millennium Park, going to Boystown for Halloween – we love going into the city!
- Volunteering
CCS is a place where your voice can be heard. Any resident can suggest or even plan a CCS event. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do in Chicago, we can probably do it.
Living in CCS
Residents and non-residents earn points in order to be eligible to live in CCS the following year. To return to CCS, residents must earn a certain number of points in the Spring through the Winter quarter. Members who were not at Northwestern the previous Spring do not receive a handicap, but are generally able to reach the amount of points required. The points cut-off for non-residents is half of the points cut-off for residents.
Residents of other res colleges may transfer their housing eligibility to CCS by contacting the Presidents of both dorms before Friday of reading week in the Winter quarter.
The order for choosing rooms is determined by points and priority. Priority is determined by the number of points accumulated.
Students can become non-residents at CCS by paying non-res dues. Non-reses can participate in all CCS activities and may receive building access. A non-res may also live in CCS in the following year by earning a certain number of points. Learn more
More for new residents
- Facilities: Learn about the 2303 Sheridan building and helpful information about rooms
- Where to Eat: Learn about the on-campus options for food, as well as Evanston restaurant recommendations
- What to Bring: A comprehensive packing list that will help you before move-in day
- Why Live in CCS?: more testimonials about why CCS is so great!