Jul 01, 2008
Orientation, for some, is the day where reality finally hits. College is right around the corner and it might mean waking up too early, tired from the weekend festivities.
With peer advisors running orientation, it might not seem so boring to watch other college students do silly skits about serious situations they might encounter at some point in their college life.
What started out as a partnership with undergraduate studies in the late 80's to help out with academic advising has evolved over the years into the peer advisor system we have today.
Both University Park and Biscayne Bay Campus have their own set of peer advisors. At UP, the peer advisors have different committees, each in charge of a specific task to help facilitate and distribute the work load evenly.
Waking up around 5 a.m. for every orientation in order to prepare everything, from the signs to the giveaways can become tiresome.
The teams eat breakfast and do cheers to get ready for the long day ahead that typically ends at 10:30 p.m.
"For me it's really hard to wake up, but as soon as I start doing the work and I start seeing the freshmen come in, for some reason, I just get this jolt of energy and its like 'Hey, welcome to FIU,' and when they go inside I crash," said sophomore Daisy Martinez.
According to associate director for the orientation office, Anna Cuba de la Fe, since 2000, the tradition has been to announce the new peer advisors the first day of school during the Spring semester at noon in the pit.
The reason behind this tradition is for the advisors to wait for fall grades to come in and make sure that the students they've selected have made the minimum GPA requirement of 2.5.
Each year a variety of students are selected to become peer advisors. From the shy and not so involved student to the perky and hyped up overly involved student.
This year alone the orientation office received over 160 applications, from which only 25 students were selected for the 2008-2009 year. Typically, out of the 25 students, two are returning peer advisors.
Rigorous training began in the Spring semester up until the week before the first orientation in June.
In between the training sessions, the team prepared to attend the annual Southern Regional Orientation Workshop (SROW) where it had the opportunity to meet other orientation leaders and see what other universities do for their orientation sessions.
Showing off school spirit with dance off competitions and creating a banner are just some of the activities that happened at SROW.
This year the team won first prize for having the best banner in the southern region.
"I've got to say FIU, just being a commuter school and maybe not being as big as Alabama State or North Carolina State, definitely beats the pack. They are always waiting for us to do our cheers," said returning peer advisor Chris Ponce.
For those students interested in becoming peer advisors, applications are out by late September or early October and can be picked up in Graham Center room 112.
Information sessions are held during the month of October for students who are interested in learning more about the duties of peer advisors or any questions they might have.
Whether it is impacting freshmen's lives, or teaching others about the university, peer advisors are, at some point, the first person students befriend in college.