From Our Scholar Blogs:

SHE-CAN Scholar thrives as Orientation Leader to Bennington College’s newest students – by Ines Simbi

SHE-CAN Scholar thrives as Orientation Leader to Bennington College’s newest students – by Ines Simbi

Last spring semester, I was nominated by my academic adviser to be an orientation leader. I applied, completed two interviews and got selected! Before the beginning of this semester, I did a three-day orientation leader training with the other leaders in September. In the trainings, we went to a camp and learned some team building activities. We also learned more about Bennington College and were given advice on how to be good orientation leaders. But the best part was that I had the chance to talk to and meet fellow Bennington students who I had never interacted with before!
I was an orientation leader for four days. I had 12 students in my orientation group — three international students and nine domestic students. I was very excited to be the first person the new students met because I wanted to be a good example to them and help them have a smooth transition in their first week at Bennington. My role as an orientation leader was to help them get to events they were supposed to attend, answer any questions they had and give them a campus tour.

​My favorite part about orientation was meeting the students in my orientation group, getting to know them and having meals with all of them. Throughout the four days, my students were pretty engaging which made it easy for me to interact with them. The most challenging part of orientation was playing icebreakers. Icebreakers are outside my comfort zone, and my biggest fear about becoming an orientation leader was that I was going to look awkward while participating in them. The first day I met the students, we played ice breakers for an hour and a half. Luckily, it went well! Another challenge I faced was getting my group of students together to attend events because most of the students were tired, and I wanted them to be respectful of time.

I learned a lot as an orientation leader. A lot of people depended on me, so I learned how to pay attention to details and make sure that my participants were where they needed to be at all times. I became more punctual, and I made new friends. I loved being an orientation leader and I’d do it again!