So as some of you may know this past week was the wrap up for the orientations at Saint Mary's until August. With it also comes one of the last times I will be performing my role as an Orientation Leader seeing how I am now entering my Senior year. As we all moved out until August we were given affirmation bags, a place we could write each other notes. I had a very hard time writing any affirmations this year because I really wish it wasn't ending. I am still working on writing affirmations for some of my newfound friends, but I wanted this piece of writing to also work as an affirmation. However, I also want it to serve as a way to show how great this experience is. I knew very few of the people who made up this Orientation team prior to the month of June. Now, they are great friends that I am glad to have met before I graduate in 2017.
What people don't always realize about Orientation Leaders is that we are not always the school spirited person that the incoming students see. In fact, I once questioned whether or not Saint Mary's was the right fit for me. My first year wasn't what I had expected it to be, but I had made some great friends, so I stuck it out for my sophomore year. Sophomore year started out great and I thought I had made the right choice in staying. Then, during the second half of the year, one of my closest friends who I had met at my orientation stopped being my friend. By this point, I had already submitted my application for my first year as an Orientation Leader, but I was questioning whether or not I belonged at Saint Mary's again. Then I got the job, I became an Orientation Leader, and I met a whole team of new people. They didn't need to know what had happened earlier in the year, they didn't care. I am still friends with the people from that first team and they helped me remember why I originally chose Saint Mary's. They made it feel like a home again.
My Junior year wasn't too bad in the first term either. Once the application process started to be an Orientation Leader again I went to the first meeting. I knew that I could help another new batch of first years find their home here. I was worried that I wouldn't get the job. I did, along with sixteen other highly qualified individuals. Fast forward to the start of our training in June. I know almost none of the new Orientation team and I can tell from our first icebreaker that it will be drastically different than the year before. I didn't know if I would be able to adapt to a new team, and as a "veteran" I was supposed to share my knowledge. I tried to do that, but I had a lot to learn myself. Every person on the team this year had something to teach me about what it means to be a leader. Though I didn't go into this experience questioning whether or not Saint Mary's was my home, they left me without a doubt that it was. The truth about my Orientation Leader experience is that both of the teams I was a part of made me feel at home. They made me confident, comfortable, welcome, loved, and happy. If not for them I don't know if I would be at Saint Mary's, or if I would be the person I am now. If I could say one last (a little cliche) thing about the experience as an Orientation Leader it would be the words spoken by our fearless leader at New Student and Family Programs,"We Change Lives," just look at me.
