I know I’m not the first to say it, but welcome to Queen’s, frosh! How do you feel? Don’t worry, you can answer me later.
My name is Bri, I’m a fourth year Drama major, and I am honoured to be one of the people entrusted with the task of welcoming you to the Queen’s family.
As Head Gael, my job is to head up Arts and Science Orientation, and along with more than 400 ionate and energetic student volunteers, I’ve been working since last October to bring you one of the most amazing weeks of your life.
Needless to say—we are all anxious to meet you, the class of 2008.
It is my hope that Orientation Week will help make your transition to University a smooth one. You are one of the youngest classes to ever attend this university, and you come from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures. You undoubtedly all have questions and concerns, and part of my job is answering them, and to help you shed some of your anxieties about this new stage in your life. Making Orientation the largest and most successful event of its kind in Canada is a responsibility that we care about deeply.
In addition to planning events, filling up water balloons, and generally being all-around great people, myself, my four orientation chairs, and my 32 Orientation Coordinators have teamed up to bring you some advice that we wish someone had told us before coming to Queen’s.
If you bring anything to school with you, make sure it’s money to do your laundry, and if you bring anything else, I hope that it’s these pearls of wisdom from the upper year students who are making Orientation Week what it is in September of 2004.
There were so many more pieces of advice that we couldn’t fit into this one article but the underlying theme in the words of wisdom from these 36 students was the same. Get involved. Take chances. Don’t wait to try out for the musical or sign up for a club—do it today. If there is anything that we have all learned through our years here at Queen’s, it’s that most of your learning and most of your memories take place outside of the classroom.
Yes, there will be essays and exams, all-nighters and 8:30 a.m. Friday morning lectures, but if you make the most of it, there will also be friends, love, all-nighters watching the stars, extracurricular accomplishments, early morning trips to the grocery store, and more memories than you could ever store in a photo album.
This is really what coming to Queens and being a Frosh is all about.
My advice to you is simple—start now. Don’t wait for these memories and experiences to present themselves to you—go out and create them. Introduce yourself to the people around you, and take an interest in the lives of others, because you can learn so much from them. Leave your high school stereotype behind, and spend every day being the person you always wanted to be.
Most of us learn these lessons in second, third or even fourth year, but I hope that you, our new class of 2008 will seize the day, and make this school an even better place to be.
Welcome to the family.
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