Every summer, new student orientation is among the biggest campus events for most colleges and universities. And it’s absolutely crucial that you get it right, so lean on a student orientation guide to make sure you include everything you need. After all, this is when incoming students, including first-year students and transfer students, first familiarize themselves with your institution and the college experience as a whole.
Getting to that point requires strategy. You have to make sure that you can communicate and provide the right campus resources, from financial aid to academic advising. Each orientation session must be carefully planned and then executed efficiently from the first check-in to the conclusion of the week.
Put differently, your orientation program is among the most important student onboarding strategies you can leverage. This student orientation guide can help you get there, from the initial preparation all the way to the execution and logistics.
1. Planning and Preparation
Planning your orientation experience early on is vital to getting the event just right. That’s why any new student orientation guide should start by preparing for the logistics of the week. This includes forming your orientation team, setting a budget, and creating a detailed schedule of modules that first-time students and family members can follow when they’re on campus.
Forming an Orientation Committee
Start by pulling in representatives of the campus units most involved in, and impacted by, the orientation week. Some members of the committee you might want to consider include:
- The committee lead, an orientation leader who ‘owns’ the event and can keep an overview of all of its logistics
- A representative of your facilities office, helping to ensure that every space you need is booked and ready for in-person sessions
- A communications lead, centralizing your efforts to communicate and promote the details of orientation on your .edu website, email, social media, and other channels
- An academic affairs representative who can speak to the needs of (and organize the availability of) individual departments, academic advisors, and more
- Student representatives who can provide a college student perspective throughout the planning process
Of course, depending on the setup of your orientation, other committee members may also be needed. For example, if your academic orientation coincides with move-in, a residence hall management staff representative will be essential. For a school with a high percentage of international students, the international student office may need to be closely involved.
Setting a Budget
Next, set financial expectations for planning the event. For example, an extravagant off-campus visit to the nearby city will be difficult to plan if budgetary resources aren’t available. Similarly, your budget may decide to which degree you can offer virtual orientation sessions in addition to your in-person orientation dates.
Begin the process by understanding the exact cost of previous orientations and how the events planned during those years might have influenced the budget. Then, work with the units directly involved in the process—from admission to academic affairs and student life—to better understand their spending. Ideally, consolidate it all into a single account.
As you move through this student orientation guide, you will find that a great event doesn’t have to be a major budget draw. A well-organized, well-executed, well-promoted, and well-attended event can go a long way toward ensuring that you don’t overspend while still providing your students the best possible experience to transition to college without information overload.
Creating a Detailed Schedule
Finally, and in collaboration with the entire committee, it’s time to create a comprehensive schedule that includes all events the orientation will need to cover. Here, representation across the board becomes crucial: you must ensure a balance of academic, social, and informational sessions designed to cover the whole spectrum while keeping things fun.
For example, most orientation sessions include placement tests for subjects ranging as broadly as English to foreign languages and math. But these tests can be immensely stressful for students. So don’t follow them up with an information-dense session on financial aid or student billing. Instead, schedule a more fun session on campus life or a breather between sessions.
Penn State University, for example, offers a two-day schedule for its new student orientation (NSO) that neatly balances all subjects that need to be covered. By the time students get to their first semester, they’re well-prepared for success. While no two schedules will be identical, building the schedule according to similar principles can go a long way toward completing your own new student orientation guide.
2. Engaging and Inclusive Activities
As you think through your schedule, take special care to ensure that all activities you have planned are designed to engage your audience and include all of your student groups. In fact, studies now show that students prefer choice in their sessions. While you will always need to have some mandatory components, some of the below can function well as options for students to pursue as they see fit.
Interactive Campus Tours
At least some of your students will be on campus for the first time. Others may also need a refresher. Regardless of their motivation, offer engaging campus tours that students can either take with a guide or on their own.
For example, consider incorporating a scavenger hunt. You can also offer themed tours for athletes, history buffs, and more. Finally, you can use your interactive campus map to build self-guided tours for students between their scheduled sessions.
Icebreaker Games and Activities
As part of your orientation, spend at least some time allowing students to get to know each other. Some common icebreaker activities for college students include:
- Sing-offs
- Name games
- Rock, Paper, Scissors tournaments
- Sentence completion
- Talent shows
- Paper airplanes
- And more
The key is building connections, which is, in many ways, the key to a successful orientation. Don’t disregard these social activities just because of the more formal activities, like course registration, that also need to be done.
Workshops and Seminars
If you’re looking for long-term student success, consider treating your orientation as a learning opportunity. Offer workshops on study skills, time management, mental health, and more. When faculty experts deliver those workshops, they can be even more engaging.
Diversity and Inclusion Programs
Formally or informally, every orientation can benefit from programs specifically designed to promote an inclusive campus environment. Cultural awareness sessions, diversity programs, and campus tours that showcase diversity resources can help all students feel more comfortable on campus. They also become a proactive way to help students understand where they can look for help. Not only is this reassuring, but it can help prevent potentially bigger issues down the road.
Peer Mentorship Programs
Finally, incorporate your upperclass students into the orientation program where you can. Sophomores, juniors, and seniors can serve as tour guides and session leads. But they can also become part of more formal mentorship programs. These programs offer guidance, support, and a sense of community in a more relatable way than faculty or administrators could. Orientation is a great place to kick off this mentoring effort by introducing new students to their peers and making those initial connections.
3. Communication and Promotion
No student orientation guide would be complete without a specific plan for communicating with your attendees. Through effective communication and promotional strategies, you can ensure strong attendance. Also, attendees will confidently know what to expect and sign up for the right sessions.
Using the Right Communication Channels
Start by outlining your communication channels. Each of them has unique benefits that you can leverage for your advantage and promotional success:
- Use email to communicate important information, such as your schedule, a new student checklist, sign-up information, and more.
- Turn to SMS texting for quick reminders about upcoming sessions and other simple notes.
- Use social media to build community within your new student body and convey the event’s atmosphere.
- Add an interactive campus map to convey a sense of place and help your new students find their way.
- Use your website as a comprehensive hub with everything students need to know.
You can also go further. Your school’s mobile app, for example, can serve as a similar hub for your website while also providing the ability for quick updates on upcoming sessions via push notifications.
Promoting Orientation Week
Once your communication channels are established, promoting the events becomes more straightforward. Begin engaging your students early. Create excitement by showing off the events and visuals from past orientations on email, social media, and your website. From there, continue with consistent communication throughout the event. Keep your students informed and engaged from the first moment to the last.
Providing Event Information
Finally, for each event during your orientation week, provide specific event information your students can leverage. Your website can become your own student orientation guide designed for your incoming class, complete with an online schedule and more.
The right student event calendar software can be especially beneficial here. It keeps all relevant information about both individual events and orientation week as a whole in a single spot, making it easy to create a student orientation guide for all your attendees.
4. Execution and Logistics
Finally, every successful orientation depends on efficient execution and logistics. Early planning can help, but execution is essential for a smooth orientation week.
Coordinating Volunteers and Staff
Start by securing and coordinating any volunteers and staff that will be involved. Each of them may have different roles, which may or may not require advanced training. By the day the event starts, they should be clear about their roles and responsibilities to make orientation as easy and straightforward as possible for your students.
Managing Logistics
With human resources in place, the physical logistics of orientation take center stage. Here, variables important to keep in mind include:
- Venue and room arrangements
- Catering services
- Technology and equipment needs
- And more
Having the right decision-makers involved in the orientation committee becomes essential. That allows you to tackle each area early, reducing stress and the potential for things to go wrong during the actual event.
Ensuring Accessibility
As you plan your logistics, you’ll need to make sure that all events and sessions are accessible to all students and able to accommodate special needs. That starts with identifying what those needs may be in the registration process. But it also has to go further—accounting for all eventualities.
An interactive map can become a vital tool here. It provides an accessible way to navigate campus and find the right routes, ensuring that students with disabilities are not disadvantaged.
Contingency Planning
Finally, devote at least some of your planning time to accounting for contingencies. Unexpected challenges are bound to appear, such as bad weather during outdoor events or technical difficulties during technology setups. Create backup plans for each of your most important pieces of the week so that you’ll always be prepared. Then, your students can always have a positive experience, no matter what happens.
Increase Engagement at Student Orientation With Concept3D
Our student orientation guide relies on four key components to ensure you create a successful event for your incoming class and drive enrollment: planning, inclusive activities, communication, and execution. A number of considerations will be crucial for each of them, but getting them right can become a massive benefit for your institution.
Having the right tools in place is one key component. For example, your interactive map can be the source of customized college tours and an accessible way to navigate campus. Meanwhile, your student event calendar software can promote each of your sessions and activities in a way that students can easily access and follow.
Concept3D can help in both of these areas. Request a demo to learn more about our tools and how we can help your school make orientation week a rousing success for new students and the institution.