Seems where I’ve been listening to the orientation anthem,”Werquin Gurl (Professional)” on repeat for the last week, I decided to spend some time reflecting on what I took away from being an Orientation Leader.
1)Both extroverts and introverts become Orientation Leaders.
If someone were to pass by Emerson on any given day, they probably wouldn’t guess there to be many people who prefer to blend in. We rolled up to campus our freshman year to people dressed in fishnets and short shorts caked with more glitter than Kesha, and we thought amidst the cheers and spectacle, “this is where I belong!” And then there are some of us who felt quite the opposite. People yelling at the doors seemed frightening, not welcoming. We walked into our new home wanting to crawl under a rock thinking, “please don’t let this be what it’s like.” It’s easy to forget that people who consciously signed up to shake it on the Cutler stage and socialize with new students would prefer less dramatic attention. I never really considered that was something an Orientation Leader would struggle with until one of our Core Staffers told us how shy he was. We would have never known because he was always ready to dance and spoke the crowd of us with such ease, but it was something he had to work at. Introverts are not necessarily wallflowers.
2)Talking about your strengths is important.
There was a portion of OL training where all of us took a test that identified our top five strengths of characters based on a situational aptitude test. All of us interpreted our strengths and talked about how we could combine different strengths as a team or in a pair or even individually to solve a problem. It’s important to know who you are as a person. A test may not be able to tell you that, but it can highlight things it notices about what you say about yourself. If you can understand how you react and interact with people, you’ll make infinitely more meaningful and successful relationships. Self knowledge is definitely a step in the right direction towards self-confidence.
3)But it’s also important to talk about your weaknesses.
Part of a group assignment included talking about weaknesses we had. Everyone struggles with something. For some of us, it’s an addiction to our morning Starbucks and a penchant for eating when we’re sad. For others, it’s a dependency on alcohol and proneness to self-harm. For example, my weakness was always feeling the need to be the parent when a friend needed help. Talking about aspects of our personality that could be harmful to ourselves was eye opening on an internal level. I never thought my “mom” instincts could be teaching my friends to perpetuate their problems by passing on to me. It was also a relief on an external level, as well, because you could look around the room and see and hear people struggling with the exact same thing. It’s essential to know that you are never alone.
4)You can’t assume anything about anyone.
It’s become a cliché at Emerson to call someone special, because how can anyone be special if everyone is special, right? Turns out, they can and they are. Everyone has such a unique story to tell and even if we joke about how most people are either from California or nowhere Massachusetts, everyone has a different background, too. We don’t call new students “freshmen” because they might not be a freshman! They could have already done a semester at another college and dropped out so they could start fresh. Or they could be transferring after two years of schooling. They could have their associate’s degree. They could be graduating early. Part of what makes Emerson so great is that we celebrate individuals, and that starts by not trying to lump them into a group the second they get here.
5) We are a community that says hello to each other…even after Orientation.
Whether it is in the DH or between classes or even off campus, I’m astounded by how many people reach out to say hello. This includes administration (hi Sharon), Orientation Leaders, and new students alike. It’s not that I was expecting everyone to go about ignoring each other after such a rigorous process, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the level of friendship that still lingers from this August. I guess you really are an OL4Life.