Mr. Freeman's Welcome at the Orientation

First week of my life in the U.S. kicked off smoothly! I got to spend some time with the International Students & Scholars staff and new friends. Thanks to their warm welcome and hospitality, my feeling of anxiety, worry and fear about the new life and new semester, which felt cold in my heart like a winter weather of January, got transformed into motivation, joy and excitement. Cross-Cultural Mentors from all over the world, volunteers and staff became my friends and support during the first week and they assisted me to step into the whole new experience in this new culture. It was a big step for me as someone who grew up in one country, South Korea, for more than 20 years.

I traveled to the U.S. with other students who are from the same university. A long journey with a few flights brought me to Fayetteville. Finally, we arrived in the hotel where we stayed for a few nights as our temporary housing before moving into our residence halls. Soon after we got to Fayetteville, Arnold (Visiting Student Program Coordinator) and Danilo (Arrival Coordinator for the International Students Orientation) also arrived and helped us. We hit it off quickly and went to have dinner together. We spent the weekend together as well before the orientation started.

Lunch in an American Home Program

Everything was new: from attending Immigration Basics Session in ISS to visiting different offices on campus, from going to make a school ID to setting up an e-mail account. Arnold, Danilo and others helped us to complete all the basic steps to prepare ourselves as UofA students even prior to all those scheduled events and programs during the orientation week. It made our transitions so much smoother! Addition to it, class registration was another challenging experience for me. With kind advice and full support, I managed to handle all the tasks to become a Razorback!

The Orientation Week was full of fun programs and important information that were helpful and enjoyable. All the scheduled programs and sessions were not too early or too late and I appreciate that same sessions were provided in different schedules multiple times in order to accommodate our individual schedules as well. This structure allowed me to have some time for myself to explore and get to know the campus atmosphere and different facilities.

I was impressed by that staff, CCM and volunteers were multitasking to deal with class registrations and other tasks to assist new-comers who did not know where to go and what to do — including myself. They were always busy but never looked exhausted or anything even though it was such a busy week. Some already knew some words in different languages and I was surprised that some were familiar with different cultures as well, which made me feel comfortable.

Volunteers who took me to different places in Fayetteville during the orientation and people who helped me throughout the week were like a searchlight for me to adjust to the new place and start my new life in the U.S. smoothly.

ICT Kick-Off Event

Tonight (1/20/2012), I am attending the International Culture Team’s Kick-off event and I am looking forward to it! I hope I’ll get to see people I met during the orientation again as a member of Razorbacks!

by Gamram Baik

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and thoughts about the first week of your stay! Those warm messages are always our motivation to work in ISS! We are so, so, so happy that everybody arrived safely and started their semester! — Nami