The welcoming student team behind Penn’s orientation week
As part of New Student Orientation and Academic Initiatives, a group of nine undergraduates have been working since June to help shape the design, development, and planning of the New Student Orientation experience for the incoming Class of 2029.
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Students who intern with Penn’s New Student Orientation and Academic Initiatives understand the challenges that come from entering a new environment, and found the NSOIA teams helpful when they themselves first moved onto campus. Anne Ishimwe (with microphone), a rising second-year in the School of Nursing from Rwanda, sought out the NSOAI internship to help ensure that new students have a great experience like she did.
Who better to help introduce new Penn students to campus than current Penn students themselves, some of whom only arrived a year ago?
The team has been working in the paid, in-person internships 20-35 hours per week, and took on additional evening and weekend overtime hours in August in the lead-up to NSO. The students are employed along three intern tracks: communications, event planning, and peers helping integrate new students (PHINS) management.
Penn Today caught up with three of the students to discuss their NSOAI internships and preparing for NSO.
Kevin Chung, a rising second-year in the College of Arts & Sciences from New York City by way of Hong Kong, says he was interested in the NSOAI internship because of his own positive NSOAI experience. He says the riveting and engaging programming it provided left him “in awe.”
Working on the events planning track, Chung—a first-generation college student double majoring in economics and philosophy—helps manage the programming for NSO. One of the main projects he has been working on is a revitalization of the Penn Reading Project. Instead of highlighting a book, this year the project is focusing on the “Revolution at Penn?” exhibit in the Goldstein Family Gallery on the sixth floor of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center. On display through Aug. 29, the exhibit examines Penn’s formation, debates on campus during American Revolution, and the compromises that led to a reorganized University of Pennsylvania in 1791. The exhibition is the inaugural event for America 250 at Penn, the University’s initiative recognizing the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
“In preparation for that, we’re making sure that students have exposure prior to coming on campus through our online modules like Thrive at Penn,” says Chung. “And then during New Student Orientation, we have three events that discuss the exhibit.”
Rising second-year Kyle Chen, who is studying finance and marketing at the Wharton School and hails from Olive Branch, Mississippi, says he was interested in the NSOAI internship because he understands the challenges that come from entering a new environment.
Chen recalls, “being a first-generational college student, things were very confusing, and I wasn’t sure where to go. NSO really gave that footing to meet new people and get integrated within campus. Being a rising second-year student and having the opportunity to work for NSOAI, I definitely wanted to give back to the program that really got me integrated into Penn.”
Chen works on the communications track and is tasked with making sure pertinent NSOAI information reaches new students.
“A large part of my job and my coworkers’ jobs have been making print and online materials such as calendars, flyers, and social media content for the events that are coming up for the new students, as well as a lot of website work, and sending out the daily emails to the first-years and specific populations, making sure that the new students will always be in the know of the events that are going on. We also worked on the designs of giveaways that highlights Penn spirit and the NSO events of this year,” he says.
Chen says his favorite part of working on NSO is the people.
“The people are what really make it fun, both the pro staff and my coworkers,” he says.
A rising second-year in the School of Nursing, Anne Ishimwe is from Kigali, Rwanda, in East Africa. Coming to Penn as an international student, she says she had a “really great experience” during NSO, especially the help she received from the orientation leaders. She sought out the NSOAI internship, she says, to help ensure that new students have a great experience like she did.
Ishimwe works on the PHINS management track, where she focuses on recruiting NSO orientation leaders to assist incoming first-year, transfer, first-generation, and/or limited-income (FGLI), international, exchange, and second-year students with their academic, cultural, emotional, and social adjustment to life at Penn. PHINS is designed to involve a greater number of students—more than 150—who can bring their personal experience throughout the NSO process.
“On the PHINS track, we just go for recruiting them and also designing the merch that they get,” she says. “On top of that, we also do in-person training.”
Ishimwe says her own NSO experience greatly influenced how she approaches her job, especially in helping to design the campus tour for new students, which has been her main focus. She remembers her PHINS orientation leader pointing out all the buildings on campus and giving her a detailed description of each.
“That kind of motivated me to create a tour that would be really engaging for students as well,” she says.
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