August 15–21, 2007, Number 456
Orientation Team Leaders (OTLs) wear theme T-shirts during Orientation so they can be easily identified by incoming students.
What is an OTL? How about an RA?
One week prior to Orientation, the Resident Assistants and Orientation Team Leaders will be hard at work learning all they can about helping your students. If this is your first student going to college, both of these terms may sound foreign to you. Both of these positions consist of students, sophomore on up, that want to assist your student with their transition into college.
Resident Assistants (RA)
For many first year students, this will be the first time they will be away from home for an extended period of time. For many of them, they also will not even be close enough to go home if they get homesick. For this reason, Michigan Tech has trained Resident Assistants in each of the residence halls. To make the students in the residence halls feel closer to one another and form bonds easier, each floor of a residence hall is split into several houses. Each house consists of about 18-27 rooms and each has an RA residing in it.
The RA’s main job is to assist the students in his/her house with problems they may have. They also present programs and activities for the students to participate in. They try to schedule socials where most of the residents of the house will be able to attend and get to know each other better. RAs are trained to deal with a variety of issues including roommate disputes, homesickness and academic performance—just to name a few. The RAs are also in charge of enforcing hall and university policies; so if your students have a really noisy neighbor or something, have your students inform the RA about it.
Orientation Team Leader (OTL)
I have many friends who currently are or have been Orientation Team Leaders. These select students get the privilege to really introduce the first year students to Michigan Tech. At the beginning of Orientation week, first year students will be split up into small groups of 10–20 students according to their major. The OTL will lead this group in Orientation activities and help them bond with each other through these activities. To get the best perspective on being an OTL, I decided to just ask one of my friends that is one. Aimee Beauchamp is a third year student, second year OTL and is the current president of MTU Circle K.
Jeremy: Why did you decide to become an Orientation Team Leader?
Aimee: I love Michigan Tech’s campus, I had a blast during my Orientation and I just knew this was the perfect job for me. I have really gotten a lot out of my experiences at Tech so far, and I feel like I need to share those experiences with others looking to make an impact on campus.When do OTLs have to report to campus and what kind of training do you all have to go through?
We have to be on campus two weeks prior to the first day of classes. We are expected to report for duty on August 18. We are trained as a group on how to deal with the important transition to college life, how to hold team meetings, answer parent/student questions, and make sure we know all the basic facts about Michigan Tech or at least where to find the answer.What do you like most about Orientation?
My favorite part of Orientation is the very first part of it; registration and move in. I love the look on the first year student’s faces, and to see the change in the parents as the weekend goes on. It is really special to be involved in the process of letting their child grow up and move on to bigger things.Do you have some plans already for your Orientation team?
This will be my second year as an OTL, so I am hoping I can really bring things together this year. I plan to spend more time with my team doing extra things like showing them around the Keweenaw or the best spots to eat. I think those are things that they will appreciate and that will help us all get to know each other.Any final thoughts about being an OTL this year?
I love being an OTL; it is an important job. We are most of the students’ first look at real Michigan Tech students. Most importantly, this job is SO much fun. It gives me the opportunity to use so many skills and to meet a lot of great new students. I love being an OTL!
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Until next week,
- Michigan Technological University
- 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931-1295
- 906-487-1885