Those Yellow Shirts

Every August, I come back to William & Mary a week early. Is it because I can’t get enough of that 110 degrees after-you-take-into-account-the-heat-index kind of weather? Or maybe it’s because I miss my rigorous academic classes, the pages of notes and the hours of homework.

Right…

I come back early every year to work as an Orientation Aide (“OA” is the lingo we use around here for that) for Freshman

orientation

Orientation. At William & Mary, all freshmen move onto campus 5 days before the rest of the W&M world gets here and begins class. You’ll move in, set up the furniture in your room, move it around 17 more times, learn your way around campus and all the good shortcuts, master how to most efficiently use the dining halls, meet your hallmates, meet freshmen from allllll across campus, go on ghost tours, explore CW, attend bashes and concerts and ice cream socials put on by the school, complain about the Williamsburg heat, and get very little sleep throughout all of this.

Being an OA is all that TIMES A THOUSAND. OAs are upperclassmen that become attached to your freshman hall, and we’re right there with you through every second of Orientation. We run on maybe 4 hours of sleep a night, wear abnoxious yellow shirts all week, and are the most enthusiastic/energetic (both nice words to really mean “insane”) people on campus. So when you’re not moving your furniture around for the 17th time, you’ll most likely spend the rest of Orientation laughing at your OA.

And we don’t care at all. 🙂

Working as an OA is probably one of — no, I take that back, the — most rewarding activity I’ve become involved in at William & Mary. I love that it’s my job to spend 18 hours a day getting to know my freshman hall — my “OA babies” — and to convince them that they’ve made the right decision in coming here. I love being their go-to person, even if they think I’m completely out of my mind. I remember being in their shoes, wanting nothing more than to feel like there was someone I could ask all my stupid questions too, and now I love being on the other side of it all, convincing them that their stupid questions aren’t stupid.

Man I LOVE Orientation.

Is it August yet???????????