With summer fast approaching, there are a whole new batch of freshmen and transfer students getting ready to come to the University of Iowa for orientation. Some will be terrified. Some will be so excited to finally be free and away from home. But either way, they will have a Hawkeye Guide to help them along in the process.
Betsy Bates is a junior and Journalism and Mass Communications major who has been training steadily for the last semester to be a Hawkeye Guide for this summer’s orientation programs.
“I had a really good experience with my Hawkeye Guide at orientation,” Bates said. “She was really helpful and became one of my friends on campus, and I wanted to be able to do the same thing and make students feel comfortable and help them with that transition to college.”
As a Hawkeye Guide, Bates will be responsible for helping students at orientation make their schedule for the fall semester, getting students acclimated to the campus and helping students form friendships with each other. She’ll be spending most of the week living in Stanley hall with another Hawkeye Guide in order to be as close as possible to meet the needs of the students.
Bates’ anticipates the most challenging part of her job this summer will be trying to get apathetic students to engage and be excited about school and responding appropriately and sensitively to all the parents’ questions and concerns. Though, after only a few minutes of talking with Bates, it’s easy to see that she knows her way around the Iowa campus well, has a wealth of knowledge concerning classes and academic scheduling and has a genuine love for helping people.
But as for the most rewarding part of her job, Bates said, “I’m looking forward to meeting all the students I’ll work with and seeing their confidence build as they create schedules and interact with other students for the first time. I just want to see them feel more comfortable and excited about school.”