Summer 2019:
I attended freshman orientation the summer before I started at Lamar and was struck by the orientation leader’s friendliness and outgoing presence. Once semester started, I occasionally ran into them on campus and, fast forward to the end of my first semester, one of them convinced me to apply to be an orientation leader.
The application process consisted of three stages. I submitted the first step, a written application, in January. Soon after I was notified that I had advanced to the second step, a group interview. On February 16th, I attended the group interview where I played ice breaker games and did activities such as puzzles with the other applicants. During the interview, I managed to get my jeans caught on a dry erase marker holder and ripped the seam down the outside of my thigh. Luckily I had on Lamar red compression shorts, and was able to tell my future bosses that I had Lamar spirit to the core. To this day I am convinced that this is why I got the job. After the group interview, I advanced to individual interviews, and was then awarded the position of orientation leader.
Making it through the application process was only the start of becoming an orientation leader. In April we had two training days to start getting acquainted with the other orientation leaders and our bosses, and begin learning our responsibilities. In May we had a week of training. Half of the week was spent away at a retreat camp where we truly got to know each other, diving into the diverse array of things that we needed to know, from social justice and cultural differences to how our payroll worked. The second half of the week was skit training at Lamar, where we learned our lines and scenes to the play that we perform at orientation. The play touches on the things that incoming students face as they transition from high school to college life, and does not dodge sensitive issues. We had an additional week of training in June where we all stayed on campus in the residence halls. We spent the week learning more about Lamar so that we would be capable of answering any questions that students or parents may have, filming the scenes for our run-out video, extensively going over how orientation days would work, and spending all of our free time getting to know each other. During this week, I auditioned to be a morning MC and was awarded the part alongside Amber. This gave us the responsibility of entertaining arriving families and students in the morning before the day got kicked off.
After weeks of training we started orientation weekends. Every orientation session we had a different daily schedule, so that all of us would have every responsibility throughout the summer. This helped keep us on our toes and kept our days interesting. However, some parts of our day did remain the same. Every day started by getting students and families checked in, and during this time I was on stage with Amber playing games with students and telling jokes. After check in we did our run-out routine and performed the play, and then moved to small groups. For small groups, each orientation leader is given a group of new students and spends an hour doing ice breakers and talking with the new students. The rest of the day is spent leading tours, mingling with students and families at organization and resource fairs, helping students get advised, answering plenty of questions, and doing all the behind the scenes things that make orientation happen.
My time as an orientation leader was extremely rewarding from all perspectives. The summer was incredibly fun, I made amazing friends that I still spend time with, practiced servant leadership and communication skills, and was able to have a positive impact on incoming students and ease their transition into college life.
Cade Pellerin 