Having the privilege to attend the first in-person freshman orientation since 2019, I would absolutely recommend this interactive experience to anyone considering attending WCU. As someone who was completely unfamiliar with the campus and surrounding community prior to touring, orientation was a great way to fully encompass the true campus experience in a short period of time, and to be granted an in-person opportunity to ask questions and hear about personal experiences from actual students who are already familiar with the campus’s social and academic atmospheres.
So far, I’ve found my orientation experience to be very representative of my experience as an actual student living on campus, and a great way to already start becoming familiar with where things are located on campus. It also serves as a good opportunity to socialize and make a few friends before moving in.
With that being said, many of the buildings on campus were either closed or under construction during the weeks that orientation was held, which made it slightly difficult not being able to actually physically see or go inside many of the buildings.
I was also a little disappointed that I also was never shown an actual freshman dorm, only the dorms in Allen, where the students were housed overnight.
However, as a whole, my orientation experience was a very positive and helpful interactive tool in preparing me and teaching me about life on campus, and I would much prefer the two-day in-person experience to the virtual modules of years prior.
