All events discussed in this interview were recounted by an anonymous freshman. How was your first day of onboarding? Was it scary? Exciting? 

Interviewee: When I first entered the library, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were staff members there to point me in the right direction. I was quite nervous because it was technically the first day of school; but once we went with our new advisories I felt a little more secure. As the day progressed, I enjoyed the presentations in the auditorium. The founder of Because I Said I Would discussed the importance of promises, and the other presenter was an interactive beatboxer. It was very entertaining, and the small activities we did to reflect on it after helped me feel more comfortable in my new academic environment. 

What happened on the next day? What did you guys do? 

Interviewee: The next day of onboarding started off similarly to the first, however we stayed in the library for a much longer time to watch informative presentations about community service. Afterwards we split up into groups to do small acts of community service. My group was planting flowers, and it was honestly a lot more fun than I thought. It also gave me a chance to get to know my new peers better. Once that was done, we headed back to the campus and got a quick tour of the school, and picked up our textbooks. 

Wow! Who knew gardening could be such a great networking event! 

Interviewee: Haha. Yes. Let me tell you about the third day! Though it was raining a bit, on Wednesday we went to a ropes course. The drive there was nice, and once we arrived we immediately got set up with the required gear and started on the course. It stopped raining by then, and I was having a lot of fun. The only part of the day that wasn’t very great was during lunch, since we had it at the adventure park. The staff forgot the sandwiches (which I had ordered) so I didn’t get to eat until 5 minutes before we left. Other than that though, it was a pretty good day and I felt like our grade was bonding. 

That sounds like so much fun! I loved when we (the seniors) did the ropes course last year! How was your last day of onboarding? 

Interviewee: On Thursday we did a modified version of our schedule to get to know our teachers. It actually wasn’t too hard to get around, and I was able to get to all of my classes on time. The teachers were nice, and I got meet classmates I didn’t meet in the other days. After every modified class was over, there was a barbecue with music and games. Though I chose to sit out on the games, I still had a lot of fun with some of my other classmates and the food was amazing (from a former public school students perspective) the day ended nicely and was a good way to close onboarding.

I’m glad things changed for the better in the food department! Thank you for this wonderful conversation! 

Interviewee: Thank you!