The NOLA Experience: 5 days of your Freshman year that you DON'T want to miss!

Guest blogger: Ali Bloomston

Sometimes I wonder where I would be now if it were not for the NOLA Experience Orientation program. Would I have still met the people I consider my best friends? Would I be as involved on campus as I am now? Would I have felt as adjusted to Tulane and New Orleans? All I know is that participating in something as incredible as the NOLA Experience has completely shaped my undergraduate career at Tulane.

How can 5 days be so impactful? While NOLA is an orientation program, it is nothing like June orientation where the focus of the program is to properly acclimate students to beginning college and different services offered by Tulane. NOLA Experience is about acclimating students to the city of New Orleans, and fostering a passion for the city that is as important to the Tulane experience as what is learned in the classroom.

Through the NOLA Experience, rising freshman are assigned to "tracks" based on their interests. Each "track" presents a unique lens in which to view aspects of life in New Orleans. Tracks range from perspectives such as food, sports, music, community service, and nature--just to name a few. My freshman year I participated in a track called "Let the Good Times Rock and Roll" which focused on music in the Big Easy.

As a participant, I ate at some of the most incredible restaurants around the city, heard a plethora of locally renowned musicians, and toured famous music venues. While some of the activities during NOLA Experience are track specific, others are with all of the tracks combined. My favorite "All NOLA" activity was Cajun Dinner and Dancing at Michaul's Restaurant, where we loaded up on red beans and rice and bread pudding and danced the night away to Zydeco music. Something else that I really love about that NOLA Experience is that each track has a community service day, which I think is a wonderful reminder that as Tulane students it is important to constantly give back to the city that gives us so much.

Probably my favorite aspect of the NOLA Experience is the people you meet. I can honestly say that more than half of my closest friends at Tulane I met during NOLA. A major perk of participating in this program a few days before school starts was that NOLA participants had such an advantage over students who move in for Welcome Week--we already had a strong support base and a feel for Tulane and the city. The bond that I formed with the other participants on my tracks still continues years later. Two of the girls on my track are my sorority sisters. I am about to room with a girl on my track for the second year in a row. Three guys in my track joined the same fraternity together. Two guys on my track joined the frisbee team together. Another two guys on my track become leaders in an organization called Roots of Music, which they found out about through our track programming. Two participants on my track dated for an entire year. Outside of my track, three other NOLA participants became my best friends at Tulane. NOLA Experience participants became student government senators, campus tour guides, student newspaper journalists, campus programming representatives, community service organization leaders, and 16 of us even became NOLA Experience Coordinators.

In addition to making lasting friendships with their peers, participants in the NOLA Experience also develop a powerful relationship with their Orientation Coordinators (OCs), upperclassmen who went through the NOLA Experience that are assigned to a specific track and organize programming and act as a mentor throughout and beyond NOLA. My NOLA OCs were two of the coolest people ever and made sure we knew all the ins-and-outs of Tulane. They constantly checked up on us throughout our freshman year and organized reunions so we could all get together and catch up. As a participant I knew how much having an upperclassmen mentor benefitted me, but it wasn't until I became an OC myself that I realized I got as much out of the relationship as participants did. My sophomore year I was the OC for a track called "Changemakers," a track that focused on social entrepreneurship in New Orleans, and I was surprised that even as an OC I became such good friends with so many of my participants. There is something about the NOLA Experience, as cheesy as it sounds, that truly brings people together.

This upcoming year I am an OC for the track "Street, Stage, and Screen" which is all about performing arts in New Orleans. I am so lucky to be able to be involved in the NOLA Experience for a third time! As a campus tour guide, I always tell my tour groups how much the NOLA Experience has jumpstarted  my Tulane career and how important it is for committed Tulane students to consider participating. So if you are looking to make amazing friends before school even starts and learn about the incredible city you will spend the next 4 years of your life in, NOLA Experience is the program for you.

Orientation Experience

Guest blogger: Darryl Farley

Student orientation is one of the most important parts of getting acclimated to the college experience.  Coming from high school you have no idea how the college life is going to be.  In most cases, the experience is not quite like they are portrayed in movies. Having student orientation gives you a better idea of how college really is. In the student orientation you meet other incoming freshmen and a couple of upperclassmen that share their experiences. The orientation staff shows you around the campus, explaining the history of the different buildings and facilities along with the opportunities that the school has to offer. The orientation also welcomes parents to tour the campus and see the place their children will consider their new home for the next four years.

Once you get to the student orientation you will have a lot of feelings and emotions running through your body:  excitement, nervous, freedom and etc. You will be concerned about how you will make friend, but stuck on the fact that you will be leaving home, becoming independent. There is no need to worry about making friends because the student orientation designs ice breaker games to get everybody talking. The students and orientation coordinator gets in a big circle and go around telling their name, where they are from, and what they plan on majoring in. Students realize they have something in common with the other students and they began to talk amongst one another. This game really works because the same people I met in orientation are some of my closest friends today.

                  The student orientation takes you around to freshmen dorms and you are able to see where you will be staying for the school year. They also take you around to the different schools at Tulane such as the A.B. Freeman School of Business, School of Liberal Arts, etc. This give you an idea of where you will be taking majority of your classes and so you won’t be looking lost on the first day of class.

                                                     

                  Take advantage of your orientation experience because it will be something you will never forget. The friends you meet at orientation will be your friends for a lifetime. The education you receive at Tulane will also stick with you for a lifetime.