College life premieres this week at St. Michael’s with an unforgettable Orientation week.

With puppy yoga, city tours, a talent show and bed races, St. Mike’s Orientation is the place to be. The plethora of events is tied together through the SMC TV theme and ensures that there is something for everyone.

The week is designed to welcome the incoming class of students to St. Michael’s and create a smooth transition into college life. Orientation will be broadcasting this week from the Registrar’s Office, Kelly Library, St. Michael’s Student Union, the COOP, athletic field and more.

“I’m happy to be at St. Mike’s because I love the vibe already. I just got here, and all the people are wonderful and everyone’s so nice. Everyone’s super welcoming, so I know I’m going to have a good experience here,” says Ian Hung, a first-year kinesiology student.

Rahul Gopeesingh, a fourth-year student majoring in mathematical applications in economics and finance, did not attend his own orientation. Over the years his affection for his college grew and he was inspired to share his love for St. Mike’s as a leader at this year’s Orientation.

“I remember in my first year I did some intramurals and I saw the words Hoikety Choik and I was like, what is this? That is so cringy, but now it’s my motto. When I hear it, I’m like that’s me, that’s St. Mike’s. St. Mike’s is a part of who I am. It’s such a tight-knit community and everyone knows everyone some way and everyone is so friendly. I can’t say definitively because I’ve never been to the other colleges, but I think St. Mike’s is the best college to be at,” he says.

Incoming life sciences student Moyin Esan chose St. Mike’s because it aligned with her own values. “I’m a really big believer in community. [St. Mike’s] seems like the biggest close-knit community on campus, and I love being close to my community. I love it when people can speak up about issues and St. Michael’s just really seemed like the place for me,” she says.

In addition to leading cheers, Orientation leaders and marshals have been preparing all summer to help ensure everything runs smoothly. This includes training in mental health awareness and equity, diversity and inclusion.

Among them is Orientation leader Rachael Speldewinde, a second-year student majoring in mathematics and minoring in statistics and South Asian studies. “It’s my role to make sure they feel welcome and safe and that even though it gets tough when classes start, there’s a community that is there for them,” she says.

The incoming class will have chance to bond through participating in a variety of activities, exploring the campus and sharing meals.

For Rahul Sahay, a first-year student majoring in mathematical and physical sciences, he’s looking forward to meeting new people from diverse backgrounds.

Finally, a Hoikety Choik for the Class of 2028!

St. Mike’s Orientation 2024 will give incoming students a glimpse into what their college has in store for them throughout their undergrad years. More than 1000 incoming students are expected to descend on St. Michael’s campus from August 26-30 for a range of activities designed to introduce them to the St. Mike’s community and to ensure a smooth transition into college life.

Orientation Coordinators Lucia Chen and Sariha Dewan are the duo working behind the scenes to plan the week’s festivities. They have been busy securing vendors, leading a team of Orientation marshals and coordinators, and figuring out how to feed everyone. By collaborating with many groups on campus, including SMCSU, student clubs, the Registrar’s Office, and the Kelly Library, they have put together an itinerary designed to keep students coming back to campus long after orientation is over.

“We want to show the orientees everything that St. Mike’s has to offer in terms of student life and academic resources, as well as show off the pretty campus. It gives them a reason to return and be more integrated into the SMC community,” says Sariha.

“Often students attend orientation and then disperse and don’t return to St. Mike’s,” says Lucia. “We want to change that by collaborating with other student groups. Many student groups at St. Mike’s offer similar events to those attended during orientation, but most students don’t know that these events exist. We hope that by introducing incoming students to the people who will be running these events throughout the year, they will see a familiar face and know about what’s happening throughout the year as well.”

Orientation programming will be offered in a choose-your-own-adventure style that allows participants to pick which events they would like to attend. This year’s SMC TV theme was chosen for its potential to bring people together.

“We tried to pick a theme that would incorporate something that all our students, regardless of where they are from, would recognize. TV is something that brings everyone together and can be a good conversation starter for people who might not know what else to talk about,” says Sariha.

The theme was easily incorporated into a lot of this year’s events: a scavenger hunt is organized like The Amazing Race; the trivia night is titled Are you Smarter than a U of T Student?; and the formal evening held at the ROM is appropriately named Night at the Museum.

Transitions can present difficulties in adjusting, and SMC student leaders are prepared to help. Orientation marshals and leaders are well trained in mental health awareness and equity, diversity and inclusion, having completed both the St. Mike’s Leadership Excellence and Development (L.E.A.D.) training and the University of Toronto’s Joint Orientation Leader Training (JOLT) program.

“These are important skills to have as a leader, especially when dealing with students in new situations where they’re with a large group of people who they haven’t met and some may be feeling homesick,” says Sariha.

After four months of intense planning, Sariha and Lucia are hoping to see many of the new students return to campus. “After putting in all the hours throughout the summer to plan the events and then hearing later from a first-year student about how much they enjoyed it, brings me a lot of joy,” says Sariha.

“I think it’s really nice to see the first years on campus afterwards. They just want to stop to say ‘hi’,” added Lucia.

Orientation is a great opportunity for students to become familiar with the University of St. Michael’s College campus, before entering first year. By integrating both academic and social programming into Orientation, St. Mike’s strives to provide them with the proper tools needed to feel comfortable and prepared as they begin their undergraduate journey at the University of Toronto. 

This year, Orientation week runs from September 3rd to 14th 2023. 

Meet the team, learn the cheers and find out more about what’s going on by visiting the St. Mike’s orientation website: https://stmikesorientation.com/

Hedieh Hashemi is a second-year undergraduate student studying Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. Hedieh was one of the orientation marshals in this past year’s orientation, and she currently serves as the St. Michael’s College Student Union (SMCSU)’s Vice President.

Applications are being accepted for the position of Orientation Coordinator until January 23.

The Summer I Found My Home Away from Home

I was the most excited when I got my offer to be a marshal for Orientation 2021. Going through orientation again, this time as staff—how could it get any better? Things were exciting on paper, but as the first meeting came around, I felt nervous. Not knowing anyone on the team—and my not-too-good skills in making friends—added to the online format of everything, all making me doubt if I belonged there. It was hard to believe in myself and trust that I was making contributions to the team.

My overthinker brain, however, wasn’t able to stop me. The good vibes in the meetings, and the excitement that came with every task related to orientation, kept me going. Patience and time cure a lot of things and they surely did work in my case. With every meeting, I got to know my teammates better, I learned that my efforts are appreciated, and the team was so supportive that soon enough I too started to feel confident.

Things got much more exciting as we got closer to Orientation Week—and the best news? We were going to have in-person events too!! Having missed an in-person orientation as a first year, I was so happy to have the opportunity to experience it. Spoiler alert: the in-person experience exceeded my expectations.

I’m not sure if it was because of everything being online for too long and me forgetting what things were like in real life but the environment around SMC was so nice! Every time a familiar face was passing by, there was a wave and a smiley face (technically smiley eyes—masks, you know?). People were so approachable, whether they were orientation staff, orientees, college staff, or the dons. Just a little “Hi!” could be a conversation starter—although I have to give some credit to my red marshal t-shirt too, which made me extra-brave to walk up to someone I’d never met before and start a conversation.

The week was full of fun events, but naturally at some points, things got rough, and there were nights when I got home tired and drained, thinking “I’m done”. And nope, I wasn’t. The next morning, at our daily 8:30 am meeting, seeing the faces of my teammates all full of enthusiasm, hearing affirmations from the Orientation Coordinators (OCs) first thing in the morning, and the team cheering each other on, all made me feel like I could keep doing this forever!

Throughout the day, there were so many small scoops of care here and there: the OCs checking in any time they were passing by, Emma (our Assistant Dean of Campus Life) always making sure the food suited everyone’s dietary restrictions and that no one was excluded, us being asked to put in the group chat and let others know that we’d got home safely whenever we were leaving late at night.… How could I not appreciate my time spent at orientation?

This orientation—which was my first-ever major in-person university experience—made me appreciate in-person interaction a lot more. I was reminded how it’s all the simple things that bring us closer together; things like sitting together and eating together, carrying a box full of orientation T-shirts together, and even running together during bed races (yes, I did have the honour of running in the bed races—and no, my legs weren’t ready for this after a year of staying at home).

This orientation also taught me that I am a fake upper-year, at least when it comes to the campus. During the week I was co-leading some of the campus tours, but did I have any clue what I was talking about? Please don’t expect a yes from me. Good thing was, by the end of my third campus tour I knew all the details of the campus so well that Google Maps might have needed to consider retiring.

Thinking about the bigger picture, it’s just fascinating how all of us came together and did all this work to welcome the new class into our community, and how we did everything we could—from giving tips and running workshops, to setting up campus tours and socials—to help our new class succeed. The passion for giving back to our SMC community made the whole process and all the efforts so much more meaningful.

And yeah, this is the story of me finding my SMC family and falling in love with this college we call our “home away from home,” all thanks to Orientation 2021.

Please note: Orientation 2021 was a hybrid event with all in-person activities following appropriate safety measures.

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This past week, we were thrilled to welcome the class of 2025 to the St. Mike’s community. Orientation felt even more special this year because students were able to safely attend many events in person, on campus. Enjoy these photos of Orientation 2021 by St. Mike’s student Isabel Padolina.

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Cianna Choo and Jessica Sorbara are this year’s Orientation coordinators. Cianna is a 3rd-year student majoring in Neuroscience and Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, while Jessica is a 4th-year English and History major. They have been involved with Orientation throughout their time at St. Mike’s and, as they say, “becoming a part of Orientation has undoubtedly been one the best decisions we’ve made throughout our time at UofT so far.”

Welcoming the Class of 2024 Virtually

Welcoming incoming students to the St. Mike’s campus and university life at UofT is always exciting and rewarding, but this year we are even more excited to be greeting students in a new, innovative way, adjusting to life amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Organizing a virtual Orientation for upwards of 1000 incoming students was definitely not something we expected when we started to plan our events in April, and we have had to adapt and reconstruct mostly all of our original plans. We have faced challenges of accessibility, social distancing guidelines, and scheduling with people located around the world. With the changing and complicated circumstances around us, we were constantly in a cycle of adjusting and re-imagining our plans for Orientation 2020. Because we are unable to have a traditional in-person Orientation we have had to think of fun events that would substitute for our usual elaborate on-campus activities. While changing plans and adapting to virtual methods of Orientation is extremely challenging, it has also allowed us to explore so many different delivery methods, activities and events that we would have never thought about before.

Something new and exciting this year has been the shift from Orientation being one week of amazing events and activities in September, just before school starts, to organizing an entire summer leading up to that week. Planning Orientation has been both a challenging and exciting process, trying to figure out ways to build the St. Mike’s community with incoming students who have never been on campus before. With the transition to an online approach, we have had to find new ways to make sure students can feel—through their computer screens—the welcoming, positive energy that radiates throughout St. Mike’s.

Throughout this summer the two of us, along with our amazing Orientation team, have had to find a way to create a virtual community; thankfully, we’ve managed to do that through our SMC Online Orientation page on Quercus and our various social media pages. Our SMC Online Orientation page is filled with modules introducing different programs, professors, clubs, events, and all aspects of life at SMC.

We have also been able to interact with students directly via our Summer Workshop Series—a new concept we are both so happy to have made possible this summer. Wanting to make sure the incoming class was prepared for their first year of university, we took a moment to reflect on our own first-year experiences and all the questions we had asked regarding university life. Our Orientation team then created and facilitated the Summer Workshop Series sessions, where we would share our own experiences and advice to help incoming students with their transition into university. We got the chance to host some amazing sessions, including ones offering ideas on how to get involved at St. Mike’s, study and time management tips, ways to explore Toronto, and so many more!

Even though we have had to eliminate some of our traditional Orientation events, we were able to create such amazing aspects of Orientation we would have never thought about previously. We also began thinking about all the different ways we wanted students to get excited about Orientation before the week itself. We wanted to make sure this incoming class wasn’t missing out on the sense of spirit that we have at St. Mike’s, so we had to get creative. We have introduced many contests this summer on our social media pages to get students engaged—learning the Hoikity Choik, getting excited about bed races, and showing off SMC spirit! We have also been extremely lucky to work with an amazing group of leaders and marshals who, throughout the entire summer, have shown everyone how much SMC means to them. By facilitating events and creating videos about campus, TikToks, Instagram takeovers, and so much more, everyone on our Orientation team has shown the incoming students how amazing and welcoming the community is at St. Mike’s.

Organizing a week of fun, informative events online was a completely new experience for the two of us, but it was something that got us to think about Orientation in a completely new way. With all the changes that have come our way, we are so excited to meet our incoming class and to see that SMC spirit—even if it is through our computer screens!

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