What?
The Welcome Experience is an event held for first-year UHP students each summer during Welcome Week, just before classes start. It's looked quite different in the past few years due to the pandemic, and with the ability to host the event in person this year, we opted to remain on campus to help students get acclimated to their new home.
I served as a Welcome Experience Coordinator, which involved meeting with my awesome team a few times throughout the summer and helping prepare mentors for their student-to-student roles. We collaborated to plan a fun mix of mingling, group activities, and UHP information sessions. This event is first and foremost a fun social event, but we needed to incorporate a little UHP crash course, too!
So what?
The last time UHP hosted an in-person Welcome Experience was August 2019, my freshman year. I moved into my dorm in Turner Hall, met my roommates, and left for the Campus Recreation Center to gather with other UHP first-years. We loaded a few school buses to Camp Kern and spent the night in cabins after a full day of teambuilding, scavenger hunts, and getting to know our Gateway classmates and instructors.
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This was three years ago, and a lot has changed! At my own Welcome Retreat, I felt excited, nervous, shy, and scared...oh, and I had food poisoning. Despite my apprehension, I still had a lot of fun and was so glad to make friends before being fully integrated to campus. It made a world of difference to me, and got me out of my comfort zone to camp (or "camp") for the first time, spend 24 hours alongside people I'd just met, and say "yes" to everything that came my way. You can see little freshman Claire in the photo above, wearing bright yellow athletic shorts...in my defense, I was not aware that the shirts would be red!
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I wanted to be involved in this year's Welcome Experience because I wanted to help incoming honors students feel at home. I remember looking at the upperclassmen facilitating our overnight event, and thinking, "these people look so happy and fulfilled by being at a UHP event with a bunch of 18 year olds. Why?!" I soon learned that it was because for the introverts and extroverts alike, the Welcome Experience is the best way to be enthusiastically welcomed to your new home for the next few years.
Now what?
To be honest, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I arrived at Swift Hall to set up our rooms. Would the students have fun? Would they chat with each other unprompted, or would it feel forced? Would our quieter members feel out of place? In less than an hour, our first icebreaker activity had led to poetry slams, a lot of friendly competition, and even a Cubic Shuffle dance-off. Let me tell you, that lecture hall has never been louder!
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If anything, this event made me want even more to get involved with first-years. I understand now why third, fourth, and fifth year students would choose to sleep on thin mattresses in the sticky heat of summer in Cincinnati. It's because first year students bring a different kind of energy to campus: they are curious, eager to learn, and excited to meet new friends. In the words of Bria Howard, "Look at these bright-eyed, bushy-tailed newbies!"
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I know I'll continue to be involved with first-year students throughout the fall, whether by giving my time to the UHP Ambassador Leadership Team or by jumping into new activities that come up along the way. I'll probably even apply to be a Coordinator again next year! But more importantly, I want to keep in touch with these new students and make sure they have the opportunity to see why UHP means so much to the Welcome Experience team.