The people behind O-Week

Ask any Rice student or alum, and most would agree that O-Week, the university’s program to familiarize incoming students with Rice, is one of their most memorable and cherished college experiences. And while the week is full of learning and excitement for the new freshmen, it represents a lot of hard work for the students and staff working behind the scenes to make the experience unforgettable for the new students.

A group of Rice's Peer Academic Advisers (Photo credit: Aliya Bhimani)

“O-Week is truly a campuswide effort driven by each college’s O-Week coordinators, who spent approximately eight months working to plan multiple aspects of the program at the college and campus levels, to select and guide their peers and to ensure the successful transition of our new students,” said Chris Landry, assistant director of First-Year Programs. “We work to provide all incoming students with a personal connection to other students, faculty and staff members that will be critical as they proceed through their time at Rice.”

When new students arrive on campus during Move-In Day, the first people they meet are college O-Week advisers. These student volunteers are competitively selected sophomores, juniors and seniors who return to Rice almost two weeks prior to the start of classes to assist new students with their academic, cultural and social transition to Rice. O-Week advisers are committed to making the transition to Rice as seamless as possible for new students, and the “pay it forward” approach is an absolute staple of Rice’s residential college community, according to Landry.

Solji Jung, a junior and Hanszen College O-Week coordinator, got involved with O-Week during her sophomore year so she could give back to the community that helped ease her into college.

“I think I realized how precious the orientation week was after my freshman year when I saw that I had such a smooth transition compared to my friends that went to other universities,” Jung said. “As soon as I got to Rice, I had a family. I wanted to give back to my community so I decided to become involved.”

Representatives from Student Success Initiatives, Wellbeing and Counseling Center, Multicultural Affairs and the Office of Academic Advising (OAA) train the volunteers extensively. The students learn how to better understand new students’ backgrounds, the situations that they might be coming from and how to handle potentially difficult situations. Each O-Week group includes two or three advisers and eight to 10 students, and each residential college has approximately 12 O-Week groups.

Before taking on the role of coordinator this year, Jung served as an adviser during her sophomore year.

“As an adviser, you put in a lot of work to get to know these new students,” she said. “You love them before you even meet them on campus!”

Jung said her role was a “huge growth process.”

“After seeing what impact advising had, I applied to be a coordinator because I thought there were things that could be improved and be more efficient,” Jung said. “Both coordinators and advisers are chosen during the fall or spring semesters and are trained on how to give interviews, build teams that will work well together, pair roommates and suitemates, form O-Week groups, plan events, etc.”

Jung noted that her work and that of the other coordinators and advisers does not end with O-Week. The groups continue to meet throughout the year.

“We’re here to see how these relationships pan out, and of course, we’re here if they need anything,” she said. “I’m very thankful that Rice gives us this kind of authority and allows us to have this kind of responsibility. It goes to show how willing Rice students are to give back to this community and how willing they are to be a part of this week.”

Hasan Seede, an adviser at Jones College, decided to become involved because of his experience as a transfer student during O-Week last year.

“I loved the social aspect of O-Week,” he said. “Rice is so much more inclusive than my previous institution, and I got to know plenty of people before going into Rice experience.”

However, Seede said, when he came to Rice, in addition to the fun of O-Week, he had to focus on trying to get courses to transfer and selecting new courses to obtain his degree. He said that his experience with the process is a major reason he decided to advise.

“I want to be there for transfer students and other incoming students who have difficulty in the transfer process,” he said.

Another vital group of individuals assisting with O-Week are peer academic advisers (PAAs), who are an integral part of the advising community at Rice. These students are competitively selected and extensively trained by the Office of Academic Advising (OAA). Rice’s PAA program has been recognized for exemplary practices by the National Academic Advising Association and is celebrating its 15th year.

“We have 48 O-Week PAAs that also come to campus 10 days before classes to help the incoming class set the foundation for their academic life at Rice, including course selection, registration, exploration of opportunities and identification of academic goals,” said Aliya Bhimani, director of academic advising at Rice. “Their passion for academics, generosity of time and devoted sense of community resonate through O-Week and beyond. We are incredibly lucky to have such an intelligent and dedicated group of students on the front line of academics.”

As representatives of the OAA, PAAs serve their respective residential college community by providing peer advice to fellow students about a wide range of topics related to academics. They also support and collaborate with college masters, divisional advisers, associates (faculty and staff) and O-Week advisers to provide academic advising.

With personal experience as Rice students and training from the OAA, PAAs offer accurate advice regarding specific courses, co-curricular opportunities, academic rules and procedures and a wide range of other topics. As fellow students living in the residential colleges, PAAs serve as familiar and approachable contacts who can answer questions and point students in the right direction if additional help is needed. Because there are 20-25 PAAs in each college, availability of academic advice and referrals to faculty and professional advisers are greatly enhanced.

“For both of us, our first exposure to the Peer Academic Advising program was during O-Week,” said Dorin Azerad and Kate Baumann, the student directors of PAA. “We both experienced the amazing work that O-Week PAAs do in introducing new students to academics at Rice. Throughout the semester, the O-Week PAAs and other PAAs at our colleges continued to be accessible and provide assistance whenever we had any concerns.”

Both Azerad and Baumann said the main reasons they wanted to become involved in the PAA program was to pay it forward to future classes of students.

“We wanted to provide the same guidance to other students that we had relied upon and found to be so important when transitioning to Rice,” they said. “We hope that in serving as PAAs we are able to help provide other students the knowledge and resources that allow them to make informed decisions, reach their academic goals and accomplish everything they want out of their time at Rice.”

For more information on how to become involved as an O-Week adviser, visit http://success.rice.edu. For more information on how to become involved as a peer academic adviser, visit http://oaa.rice.edu/rice-advising-network/paas/.