Freshmen tour school, team-build during orientation

Headline, News — By admin on August 28, 2009 1:51 pm

By Krista Sanford, Asst. Web Editor

As school approaches after a long summer, the Class of 2013 prepare for high school. This year, freshmen orientation was held at 7:25 a.m. on Thursday, August 20.

Freshmen orientation is designed to help the newcomers get involved in school activities, learn their way around school and meet new people. Upperclassmen acted as mentors and gave the freshmen a tour around school.

Mentors not only helped the freshmen at freshmen orientation, but they will also lead freshmen in their required PLC/Gold seminar days.

“I kind of had a hard time [as a freshman] and I wanted to make sure no one else did,” Mitch Lewis, senior and mentor, said.

Nick Westin, freshman, has the advantage of having an older sister already at Wheeling. Even with this advantage, Westin still found freshmen orientation helpful.

“It’s [orientation] tiring, but worth it,” Westin said.

Freshman orientation not only helps students find their way around school, but it also helps them learn about WHS and how the school runs.

“I feel inspired and have knowledge,” Alex Gonzalez, freshman, said about his orientation experience. “I found my locker and learned to open it. I learned a bunch of things. I never knew they [WHS] had a theater.”

Jose Andres, freshman, had a different look on freshmen orientation. He did not like the tour and found it to be of no help to him. However, he did like the low ropes course which Brian Lichtenberger, Associate Principal, built over the summer.

At the end of the day, the students were able to walk around the gym and sign up for clubs, sports, and other activities. The students who signed up to receive more information from at least 20 of these were entered into a raffle to win a T-shirt from the student council office.

“The purpose of the raffle was really just to get the freshman to the tables and hopefully from there they would have found an activity that interested them and that they would want to be a part of,” Sandra Chico, freshman orientation advisor and social studies teacher, said.

Rachael Laing, junior and Circus literary magazine member, said that by having freshmen sign up for 20 activities, they will have more school spirit and more interest in different clubs.

Katie Ruck, sophomore and cross country member, has a different opinion on the raffle.

“I don’t believe they’ll [freshman] do the activities that they are signing up for. They just want candy.” Ruck said.

On the first day of school all the mentors wore their tie dyed shirts so that freshmen could easily recognize them and ask them any questions.

Because of the mentors, Ms. Chico said that “the freshman were able to create relationships within themselves and with other (older) students.”

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Tags: alex gonzalez, Brian Lichtenberger, freshman, jose andres, katie ruck, mitch lewis, nick westin, orientation, rachael laing, sandra chico