Karen's Adventures: My Day as a Student

On the last orientation session of the summer I was given the chance to go through the program as an incoming student. I was excited to see what we had been producing all summer through the students eyes, but was a little nervous too. I thought that it would be easy and that I would just tell my small group that I was an intern just shadowing their day, but little did I know that I would be doing it all under cover. The staff was briefed that morning that Paul, the other intern, and I would be going through the day as students and that they were to treat us as such. It was hard to not interact with them especially in my small group of about 25 with my two leaders who actually did a pretty good job holding it together too. All the mentors told me that I was good and even when they smiled at me I did not crack. I did get an awful lot of attention from them though it certain situations and I felt bad for the other students who were actually going through orientation as everyone on staff asked me how I was doing. As I had to make up a few years of my life in case students in my group wondered why I looked so old I created a back story...here is is...

I decided that I could pull off being 22. I was from Gig Harbor Washington, as it proudly said on my name tag, and I had attended two years of college at the University of Washington (Go Huskies!). I even was prepared to say that I had gone through recruitment and joined Chi Omega at Washington, as that is such a big deal and topic of conversation here during orientation, but never had to use it. After my sophomore year I decided that I wanted to take some time off and was not really ready to grow up, so my friend and I moved to Sun Valley, Idaho and worked there for two years at a small coffee shop in the lodge and skied. (I wanted it to be Whistler, but I was too afraid that someone would have actually been there or asked me about getting a work visa...so I changed it) I now was ready to go back to school and since all my friends had already graduated I was looking for something different. My older sister had just been accepted to law school at the University of Arkansas and we decided that it would be a fun adventure if I followed her to school. So I was a transfer student, living off campus and my sister was off looking for an apartment while I was at orientation. I went through orientation as a Walton College of Business student interested in marketing as I would like to return to the resort industry. (On a side note, we picked Walton because I thought it would be interesting to see what they do during orientation. Walton College of Business has a ton of money thanks to a giant endowment from Walmart and the Walton family...very spoiled students :))

I only had to use the majority of my story once. I made friends with this sweet girl in my small group. When she asked me what residence hall I was living in on campus, I had to respond that I was living off campus and that I was a transfer student. Then at dinner she asked me who I was living with or if I knew where I was living since I was from so far away, to which I told her about my "sister". I felt really bad and was so afraid that she would ask me for my number or something, but thankfully not. I think that it helped for her to know that I was a little older... whoops :) I mainly just tried to keep her talking and ask her questions about herself. At least I helped her by telling her to pick more classes she was interested in than her adviser did, for scheduling on the second day, almost everything was full at that point in the summer. So maybe, thanks to me, she at least got a schedule she liked out of it.

Here I am...check out my official nametag