Every year, the new class of freshmen is welcomed to USC at First Night Carolina. But this isn't actually anyone's first night at Carolina — that happens at orientation, the two-day session over the summer where new students learn the ins and outs of life as a Gamecock. Each group of freshmen is only on campus for two days, but the team of students that guides them is at USC nearly every day of the summer.
Allie Warrick, Carey Ray and Anna Tonseth all worked as Team Leaders this summer overseeing groups of Orientation Leaders. Their job was to manage the orientation process, rather than work directly with the incoming students. Like many other OLs and TLs, they cited their own orientation experiences as what inspired them to join the program.
Warrick, a graduate student hoping to pursue a career in higher education and student affairs, worked as an OL last year and as a TL this summer.
"It was something that I had seen myself doing when I was an incoming freshman back in 2012," Warrick said, attributing her interest to the connection she felt to her own OL four years ago. "It was just this sort of thing where they made it look so cool and they had so much fun doing it."
Warrick applied once unsuccessfully before being offered a position as an OL the summer before her senior year. She said that she has received a great deal of support from the professional staff in the Office of New Student Orientation, who encouraged her to become a TL after her first summer with the program.
Ray, a fourth-year exercise science student who was an OL last summer, said that she decided to apply because she saw the relationships that her own OLs had with each other and how much they enjoyed the university.
"I think my orientation experience made me more sure about coming to USC, even if it was just the one-day session that I had at the time," she said. "I saw how my Orientation Leaders were interacting and how they were from all over, from different places, and they had come together and made friends and found their home here."
Tonseth, a third-year exercise science student who was also an OL last year, said she appreciates the encouragement from the professional staff.
"I think the relationships I've built with the professional staff has been my favorite part," she said. "I think that's been a really cool connection to have, especially in college and trying to figure out what you're going to do afterwards. It's nice to have adult figures to have a connection with."
Ray said that the relationship between the professional staff, the TLs and the OLs feels like a family to her, rather than a strict hierarchy of authority. She considers herself a cheerleader for the OLs on her team.
"I didn't want to be their boss.,"Ray said. "I just wanted to be their mentor and their friend."
The TLs were largely responsible for training the OLs and being available to answer their questions and resolve day-to-day problems, as well as for helping the cogs of orientation run smoothly during each session. The TLs have relatively little direct interaction with the incoming freshmen.
Both Warrick and Ray said that their favorite part of being a TL was getting to work with a team of OLs. Warrick said that she was nervous about missing out on the daily interaction with new students, particularly the conversations that happen during small group sessions. But rather than acting as a leader to the new students, she found herself becoming that sort of mentor to her OLs.
"What I realized as my time with the orientation staff as a Team Leader went on (was) I had that small group, but it was with the Orientation Leader staff," she said. "Seeing how far they've come personally and within their leadership skills, but also as a team — it's incredible. It's so rewarding to see the difference that I've made in them and our team has made in them."
Ray said that even though she found it difficult sometimes to tell the OLs when they were doing something wrong because she is friends with them as well.
"I really love to see the Orientation Leaders succeed or just love what they're doing," she said. "To see the people I've led and impacted, that they're getting the most out of being Orientation Leaders and they're helping people and that people are acknowledging that they're doing something great — just to see them succeed is great to me."
After two summers each of working through orientation, Warrick, Tonseth and Ray recognize that there are some significant differences between the taste of college life freshmen get over the two-day session and the reality. They all said that there is much less structure and much more responsibility when it comes to being a college student.
"I definitely say Monday mornings are a lot harder to wake up to. You don't have people cheering in your face," Ray said. "So there's a lot more freedom, but with that comes a lot more responsibility to make sure you're going to class, make sure you're waking up, make sure you're being at these places on time and doing what you're supposed to."
Tonseth thinks that college life gives more opportunity to find a unique community. She hopes orientation helps incoming freshmen learn that "Carolina is an inclusive community and that we have something for everyone here." She said the opportunity to meet people is even greater during the semester than it is at orientation.
Warrick said that sometimes new students get frustrated with the rules and restrictions they have to abide by overnight during orientation. She said that the programs is scheduled out of necessity and daily college life is much less so.
"The reality is that we have 400 or so students here during every session, so we kind of have to micromanage them in a way," she said.
Ultimately, these three TLs all said that working with the Office of New Student Orientation has turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences they've had in college, even with the long hours and notorious Columbia heat.
Advice for the freshmen
Allie Warrick — "Your first friends don't necessarily have to be your best friends or your only friends ... Who I am now is not who I was freshman year. Who I hung out with freshman year is not who I hang out with now."
Carey Ray — "Don't try to do all the things. Do the one thing or the few things that you love the most, because that's where you'll find the most happiness."
Anna Tonseth — "Embrace the fact that you're at a big university like this, and just there's so many different people that you could meet."