8 highs of Orientation

One activity we do at Orientation is a game called "One high, one low." And simply enough, you go around a circle telling the group about one high moment and one low moment of the last week or however long, or in our case, Orientation. So I figured, why not do eight of them?

- One of my students told me on the second day of the session that he appreciated the work my partner (the lovely Erin Kelly) and I did and thanked us, because he wasn't sure if anyone else had yet.

- During the evening activities (dance, bingo, movie, pizza in the dining commons), I was cleaning my water bottle in the bathroom, to which one student remarked to me. After we had a 12-second conversation about cleaning water bottles, he told me that all of the Peer Mentors were doing a great job with everything.

- All of the other Peer Mentors told fantastic stories about their personal highs for Orientation, and different things students said to them. It let me know that the entire team as a whole made an impact on the first-year students, and I think that we more than welcomed them into the Stonehill community!

- My partner was amazing. She's heard all of this and more already, but Erin made it so easy for me to be a successful Peer Mentor, both in what I was doing in terms of the group, and how I thought things were going.

- Welcoming families and students at 8 a.m. in the morning clad entirely in purple with sunglasses and a vuvuzela and pompom just screams enthusiasm. I had so much fun welcoming families that I kinda wished I could have done that all day long.

- All of the Peer Mentors cared about my well-being. I've been sick for the last week, and at some point during those last seven days, I'm pretty sure that every single member of the team has asked me how I was doing at least once. To know that they care about a part of their team helped me keep going all day when it was easy to just slack off and do nothing.

- For the second session's Playfair, I was near the front of the Peer Mentor tunnel for the first-year students to run through. And in the Sports Complex, it was just so loud hearing everyone screaming, cheering, chanting, and clapping that it almost seemed like I wasn't sick. I didn't have my mind on anything else for those 10 or 15 minutes, and I felt so alive during that moment.

- No one had a bad time at Orientation. All of the partners said that it was one of, if not the best Orientation experience they've had, and so far, that's true for me as well. It makes me warm and fuzzy inside to know that I was a small part of something so meaningful for someone.

There are certainly more highs of Orientation so far, and more specific examples, but I think that these eight are a good representation of the amazing time I had at Orientation, and now that I've already been through it once, I don't think there's anything preventing me from being more excited for next year's Orientation.