My Best New Student Week Experience

Congrats!

Congratulations to the new Carls for completing the admissions process. Your efforts have paid off. Now what? What are the next steps? How do you want your college life to be? What experiences do anticipate having? It’s totally fine if you haven’t started thinking of these things just yet. Moreover, you don’t need to stress too much because Carleton has everything planned out for you.

First Year Orientation

The fun events and programming for first years during the New Student Week (NSW) introduce you to the wide range of resources offered to you at Carleton. NSW takes place several days before classes officially start, so you have time to acclimate to college life, find your way around campus, and get settled before the term begins.

My NSW experience helped me to get a general impression of how my four years at Carleton might look like. I got to know a lot about life at Carleton through tons of activities, with the most notable ones being CarlTalks (a series of lectures about student wellbeing, mental health, diversity, inclusion, etc.), The Variety Show (a talent show), Academic Advising, and NOlympics. It’s without a doubt that my favorite of all was the NOlympics event, and here’s why.

NOlympics

On Friday, September 10, after having a satisfying dinner with my NSW group, I went straight to Nourse’s third-floor lounge with other floormates for a meeting with Marc, my resident assistant (RA). The meeting was to ensure everyone dressed up for the event according to our floor theme, which was “Night Sky.” Most people wore pajamas and Marc assisted by providing glitter. Before heading to the fields behind the Recreational Center for the start of NOlympics, we talked strategy with our teammates, who were residents of the third floor of Myers Hall.

Throughout the event, our group participated in many fun events like the horse race, trivia, frozen t-shirt, tug of war, and frisbee. This gave every student the opportunity to interact with one another outside, while playing fun games. I met a lot of new people, a few of whom are my friends now.

My takeaway for any student who will be attending this year’s NSW is to force yourself to interact with new people. As an international student, I was quite nervous to meet tons of new people at first. But trust me, people here are so enthusiastic and friendly. They have a wide array of talents, interests, and perspectives that they love sharing in their conversations. So look forward to NSW!

Ben is a freshman from Bamenda, Cameroon, who is eager to experience snow for the first time. Aside from an interest in Computer Science, he is excited to explore Cinema and Media Studies, Economics, Studio Art, Cognitive Science, and Mathematics. At Carleton, he wants to participate in a few clubs and other campus activities, while keeping an academic-social balance. In his free time, Ben enjoys watching anime and random TikTok videos, listening to music, and hanging out with friends. Meet the other bloggers!