Before starting school at California Lutheran University, one has to attend the student orientation. The spring orientation was slightly smaller than the Fall and took place on Jan. 19 with 40 students in attendance. 

“Typically in the spring we have roughly between 60-70 estimated students who are admitted, and about 40 of them will attend the one day orientation,” Jaime Faucher, the Coordinator for the transitional and leadership development programs at Cal Lutheran, said. “In fall we admit closer to 700 students, so obviously 700 comparing to 70 is a huge difference.”

Faucher said spring orientation does not include many of the social programming that happens in the Fall, for example, convocation, the service project or the painting of the rocks.

“I like meeting a whole bunch of new students,” Andres Elvira, student at Cal Lutheran and staff for the student orientation, said. “I really like the spring orientation because it has smaller groups, you can interact with people a lot more.”

However, according to Constant Grosberg and Oceane Franc, they felt as if the spring orientation lacked an effective integration into the Cal Lutheran community.

“For me, it was very surprising because I thought we were going to be introduced and integrated with a big welcome, and told a little about what activities we can do at school,” an exchange student from France, Grosberg, said. 

Franc, also an exchange student from France at Cal Lutheran, said that she felt they did not get enough help from the spring orientation staff because they did not explain what kind of activities new students can join at school. Also, they did not describe how to add and drop classes, which Franc said would have been helpful to her.

“This is our first semester and we are exchange students,” Franc said. “They gave us a map of the campus, but they did not show us where the buildings for the class were and if we have to drop a class where do we go. The first day of class it was difficult because we were looking at the map, and looking for the building for the class. We felt alone because we did not know where the buildings were.”

Faucher said  the demographics of the students between the semesters are different as well.

“There were quite a few international students. We had a couple from France, Netherlands, there were a lot of different international students, and it was great to see them,” Faucher said. “Out of the 70 that were admitted roughly fifty of them are transfer students and 20 of them are first years. Whereas in the Fall it’s about 500 first years and like 200 transfers, so it’s kind of a flip flop.”

Faucher said the spring orientation also had older demo-graphics, including individuals ranging from 30-50 years old.

There are some standard topics that have to be mentioned in both Spring and Fall’s orientation.

“The spring orientation is similar in terms of the type of topics,” Faucher said. “The day starts off with check in and then [they are] welcomed by the director of student life. They go over things like FERPA and title IX, which are some required pieces that are important just for legal reasons that the students need to be aware of, and be knowledgeable on.” 

Faucher said many transfer students live different lives than the freshman students.

“That is also why it is not a full five days because since there are many transfer students they work, and have kids, it’s a different population,” Faucher said. “Our first year students are traditionally aged 18 years old, who are excited about the full five days because it’s their first college experience. Whereas many of these transfer students feel like we’ve been through this before, or we know what college is because I came from this other institution.”

Students of the Cal Lutheran community were needed to assist in order for this orientation to be put on. Elvira’s position in the orientation was to help lead as a peer advisor.

Lisa Hemmingson
Staff Writer
Published February 3rd, 2015