I just finished my second summer as an Orientation Leader at UNC-Greensboro. This year being a student captain definitely showed a whole new side of the job as an orientation leader, but being a Spartan Orientation Staff Member, is a lot of work, and I know first hand the emotional toll it can take. While the job on the outside might seem like an easy one, the roller coaster of emotions is true none the less.
1. Delighted
Whether
it be the first orientation session or the last one, each day brings its own
adventures, and therefore excitement for the leaders. While some students might
reciprocate that excitement, many students that you interact with during
orientation are only there, because it’s required. Either way, every
orientation leader is just delighted for the opportunity to share their
university with all the incoming students.
2. Productive
Orientation leaders work long hours, and for the majority of programs, don’t even get breaks. While this might seem absurd to those who have never worked for an orientation program before, as an orientation leader you are being one of the most productive student leaders on your campus. Feeling productive can help influence orientation leaders in being the best they can be, and create experience for their future careers.
3. Anxious
As an orientation leader, more information than you can imagine is going to be told to you and you’ll be expected to remember and understand it. The anxiety comes in, when students and family members ask you a question, and you become afraid that you will give incorrect information. While you can use anxiety to our advantage, it can sometimes become too much, and end up being a hindrance.
4. Connected
Being an orientation leader, not only are you meeting thousands of incoming students, but you also get the opportunity to meet and connect with faculty and staff on so many different levels of your university. Anything from being on a first name basis with the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at UNC-Greensboro, or getting scholarships and job offers from different campus partners, connections are definitely made during orientation.
5. Pumped
There’s just something about being on stage in front of 700 people, and doing anything from performing to just simply welcoming new students, really gets your adrenaline going. The adrenaline pumping through your body, really helps keep up that school spirit, and if other orientation programs are like ours, then you’re cheering more than you are talking during SOAR.
6. Tired
Working long hours, and sleeping minimal hours definitely brings exhaustion with it. While orientation leaders get tired, it’s important to keep up morale, and if you get a break, take it. A 20 minute break, can turn into the most rejuvenating twenty-minute nap you have ever had. While a constant state of being tired is expected for an orientation leader, but its imperative that the students, and guests don’t recognize it.
7. Caffeinated
“Can I get a Venti Iced Coffee with Caramel and Half and Half,” my order to the Barnes and Noble Café barista three times a day during SOAR. While we are exhausted during orientation, everyone has there outlets to bring energy back, for me it’s obviously coffee, where others eat nine chicken minis every morning, or both.
8. Most Importantly, Satisfied
No matter if the feeling is delighted, productive, anxious, or tired, everything becomes worth it when you remember why you became in orientation leader. Seeing, and hearing, students feel at home at your university, and ready to start their first year, makes minute well worth it.
