As a first-year student, I went through the application process for being an orientation leader; I completed the application online, went to the four-hour group interview and then completed my individual interview. My roommate applied for the position as well, but he wasn't able to make the four-hour group interview because he had basketball practice. Nevertheless, he got a position and I didn't.
Naturally, I was upset. Not only because he got the position and I didn't, but also because I felt like I wasted so much time going after the position. So when the application came by the next year I didn't even bother wasting any more time and passed it up.
However, the next year another one of my roommates got the position and talked about how life changing the experience was as well as all of the new friends that he met. I was a little skeptical at first, but when I saw him, who was a quiet kid as long as I've known him, go to banquets and "family dinners," I knew that something changed in him. A once pessimistic and gloomy kid suddenly became an optimist.
After seeing the amount of fun my roommates had during their experience I decided that I wanted to be an orientation leader for my senior year. So I applied and managed to convince my fourth roommate to apply as well.
This time my hard work paid off.
When I opened the letter in the mail and saw that I was accepted for the role I was ecstatic. I took pieces of tape and posted the letter on my bedroom wall right next to where I sleep. I immediately put in all of the dates that we had training into my phone calendar and couldn't wait to get started.
After a grueling summer internship in the city, I couldn't wait to get started as an orientation leader. During our first few days of training we had a lip-syncing battle between all of the Orientation Leader (OL) teams, played a huge secret OL prank on six of the OLs and we spelled our name with our butts. (Not my favorite game, but it was all in the spirit of bonding together.)
Then suddenly, the first-years were on campus. As soon as the first-years arrived to pick up their bags and shirts, about six orientation leaders were there jumping up and down and screaming "WELCOME TO LEHIGH, WELCOME TO LEHIGH." Sometimes one person would approach a first-year and ask them "Hey, what's your name?" That person would turn back and tell all of the other OLs, "Guys Rose is here" and once he/she said that then everyone would be screaming "WOOOO, ROSE IS HERE, ROSE IS HERE. WOOO!"
Although we were all more than prepared, I was still slightly nervous about meeting my group of 20 first-years that I would be leading for the next four days. But after a few awkward hiccups at first I was able to put myself in their mind state.
In the beginning it was tough because as a senior it was hard to put myself into the first-year mind state. At first, I didn't fully realize that the first-years didn't know much about Lehigh University at all, hardly anything, actually. Once I realized this, I had a much easier time because I knew I had to explain all of the basics that I assumed everybody knew to be true.
In the end, I turned out to have a fantastic group and even spotted a couple of people who have potential to be an OL in the future.
I remember that when I was a first-year, I did not appreciate anything. I hated playing the awkward ice breaker games. I hated going to all of the rights and responsibility meetings. I just hated the whole process.
But as an orientation leader, I learned to appreciate how much time and effort is put in in order to make sure that the first-years are able to create connections, learn more about the school and plan out what they want their next four years to look like.
Our OFYE directors Kara Gensamer and Stefanie Burke were pivotal in coordinating the logistics of everything including planning out the entire list of events over a four day period, creating a schedule for all of the orientation leader training sessions and being available to answer a phone call in case anybody ran into a problem. But without being involved in the process I would have never been able to understand how hard they worked, which makes me wonder how many more events on campus go underappreciated.
Nevertheless, the whole combined effort from our staff led to a community of orientation leaders that dominated the campus with their spirit for an entire week. As a senior, it is unfortunate that I will not have this opportunity again, but I know the closeness and bonds that I created while going through this process will last for a lifetime.
