A QUIET ROOMMATE
Karly Koronkiewcz takes care of a fish that belongs to one of the students moving in to the U of R’s residences. Volunteers are helping to ease the process for newcomers.
Drew Fleck remembers being stressed and nervous moving into residence as a first-year nursing student two years ago.
She spent Friday helping calm the nerves of other new University of Regina students as they moved into Kisik Towers.
“This is a lot better now that we’re on this side of it. You don’t feel so stressed. It was crazy the first day. It was a lot more nerveracking. Now I can understand what the students are feeling,” said Fleck, who was afraid to leave home and live on her own.
As a resident assistant at Paskwaw Tower, Fleck was among more than 50 volunteers assisting on move-in day.
Fellow RA Cassie McCallum was one of them.
In her second year of education, McCallum is in her first year as an RA, a job she wanted so she could support other students.
“It’s a really good job to help students, especially first-year students, when they’re just moving in, they’re stressed out, they’re away from home,” said McCallum.
With 800 students slated to move into the U of R residences this weekend — 60 per cent of them first-year students — organization is key.
Shayla Dietrich was a leader in making sure things ran smoothly.
She controlled two lanes of traffic — vehicles full of new residents, their families and belongings. Wait times were at about a half-hour per vehicle on a sunny and windy Friday morning.
“If they’re a pair or three cars, sometimes there are four cars to a family, so we just make sure they get to go up there together,” said Dietrich, U of R manager of student recruitment and marketing.
Fellow parking attendants, dressed in orange and yellow vests, alerted Dietrich as to when and how many cars she could send ahead.
A crew of volunteer ambassadors in yellow T-shirts were at the ready with trolleys to help new students load up their totes, bedding and supplies.
Dietrich said that, over the years, the university has tweaked its move-in-day processes to make things run more smoothly. “It’s a lot of planning,” said Dietrich. The orientation committee starts meeting in October to plan for the next school year’s move-in day.
Little things can help, like having cellphone numbers on the stickers assigned to each vehicle.
“When they move in, they sometimes get excited and then they don’t come back for their cars, so now we can call them and say, ‘Hey, you need to move your car, there’s a lot of people waiting,’ ” said Dietrich.
She fields all sorts of questions from students waiting to move in, everything from “is this full-sized fridge OK?” to “where can I get my student ID?” to “what is there to do this weekend?” to “where do I get groceries?”
As part of the orientation committee, Dietrich also co-ordinates welcome weekend activities for new students.
“My big advice would be to not go home for the weekend,” said Dietrich.
“The students who stay go to all the activities and they get a chance to meet so many other new students, so when Tuesday comes and orientation day comes, they’re already comfortable.”
McCallum and Fleck agreed: The events are great for meeting new people.
Living in residence is also great for making new friends.