Weeks of Welcome brings excitement for students

By Madison Brown | Staff WriterAs students began to move into the Augusta University dorms on Aug. 12, the atmosphere was buzzing with excitement due to classes starting on Aug. 16 and welcoming week activities following soon after.Many freshmen students may have a preconceived idea about welcoming week activities because of movies that show someone starting college for the first time. Everyone has seen those college movies, right? The ones where someone has just moved into their college dorm room and is immediately surrounded by different activities where they can meet new people, join clubs, or even just hang out and explore the campus.As Aug. 16 finally rolled around and classes began, the Weeks of Welcome, or WOW, events at Augusta University officially began and AU became just like a movie.On the first day of classes, the office of Student Life and Engagement, or SLE, kicked off the WOW events with "Lemonade Brigade" where they had volunteers on campus giving out free lemonade to students.There are several kinds of events, such as ice cream socials, “speed friending,” and movie nights. The events gave freshmen the opportunity to meet new people, make friends, and connect with different campus organizations like fraternities, sororities, and intramural sports teams.All the events planned under the WOW have a specific date and time, the earliest event being Freshman Convocation on Aug. 15 to the Study Abroad Fair on Sep. 20. Many of the events were held at the Summerville campus, usually in the JSAC or on the JSAC patio. But other events, such as Paint Palooza, were held at the freshmen dorms, Oak Hall.According to the office of SLE's webpage, “WOW is during the first weeks of classes packed with a variety of events and activities to assist first year, transfer and returning students in making new friends, connecting to Augusta University resources, and getting involved in campus life."In the past few weeks, various WOW events have been attended by more than 2,000 students who have attended four to five events and 1,564 students who have attended at least one of the events. The event with the highest rate of attendance was Taste of Augusta with more than 546 students attending while there were only 253 attendees in 2016, followed by ClubFest with 354 attendees.Along with the traditional events, there were also several new events introduced this year. Paint Palooza, a new event sponsored by the CREW, had over 330 students in attendance. The first ever Health Sciences Kickoff had 169 students in attendance with 25 baby blankets being made for Project Linus, 105 rocks painted for the Children’s Hospital, and two large posters made with messages for the AU Student Service Members.

“I think it definitely helped students become more active with each other in ways outside of academics to make them more comfortable together so that when they need people to study with, those people will be there for them," said Brianna Benoit, a sophomore pre-physical therapy major and an RA at Oak Hall.

Some students gave their opinions on the WOW events and whether or not they succeeded in helping the students to be more comfortable at AU.Shekinah Bartido, an 18-year-old freshman pre-clinical lab science major, said that the WOW events, “helped me to not focus on being away from home and it helped me to make friends quicker than I normally would have.”When asked about anything she didn't like about the WOW events, Bartido said there was a lot to do in a short amount of time and wished that the events had been a little more spread out."There was a lot of events that were back to back and I wish there had been more time to go to all the events, not just the ones I could go to while I wasn't in class," Bartido said.When asked about her favorite event, Rhys Payne, an 18-year-old biology major, said that it was Paint Palooza even though it was kind of bland, to begin with."People bonding over, not really being into Paint Palooza, and meeting other people was a lot of fun,” Payne said.When asked why Paint Palooza wasn’t quite her thing, Payne said, “It was very specific to the event itself, and it didn’t really have a wide variety of music, and I don’t really vibe with that.”Zatrick Pearce, an 18-year-old physics major, said he would do nothing when asked what he would change about the WOW events."I had a lot of fun and it was all really cool so I wouldn’t change anything," he said.Brianna Benoit, a sophomore pre-physical therapy major and an RA at Oak Hall, said she thinks the WOW events help freshman students in becoming active on campus.“I think it definitely helped students become more active with each other in ways outside of academics to make them more comfortable together so that when they need people to study with, those people will be there for them," she said. "It definitely helps create a better working environment.”Through records of attendance and firsthand accounts from students, it is clear to see that the Weeks of Welcome events are something that helps students be more comfortable at college along with being something that helps them make good relationships with fellow students as well as faculty and staff on campus.