Orientation Week

The first week in Berea was very busy, as we had a lot of orientation activities.

Moving in the dormitory, opening post office box, opening bank account, taking placement tests, meeting the International Student Advisor, visiting the faculty professor, checking the work place and different campus buildings, finishing registration, familiar myself the direction of the campus - the food service, draper building, library, computer center...

All the things were quite new for me, in addition, I had no friend when I first arrived there at that time.

For freshman, we were requested to arrive earlier to adjust ourselves.

I had an African roommate for my freshman year. She only arrived 3 days later as courses had not started yet. My roommate was very nice to me, she was a sophomore, majoring in Business Management at that time ( Interesting enough, she went for a nursing major for her Master degree few years later).

Therefore, I was alone for few nights at the beginning, I told myself I could overcome everything by myself.

I was kind of depressed when I first knew that my labor assignment was working in the dinning room of Boone Tavern. Not the office work or other things else!

In addition, I also found that it was difficult for me to communicate with people, I could not catch up as they spoke very fast, not to say that if sometimes they told jokes, I was definitely lost!!

This was also my first time to work in shifts, there was no fixed working schedule, I needed to check my shifts once every week, sometimes, I worked for breakfast, sometimes lunch, sometimes dinner. If for dinner, we had to wait under all the guests left.

For the first week, I didn't realise ( times per week to work were not fixed either) that I overlooked the schedule and I missed one shift, I got a warning letter from the hotel manager, and I needed to meet her. I was pretty down, and I explained to her my case.

The lady reminded me to be careful next time as staff were shortage for the business, missing one person meant staff had more work to take care of.

As time passed, I could adjust myself by overcoming different kinds of difficulties - I could meet plenty of international students over there ( getting some good advices and experiences from them), and some American students as well, the exposure was even much greater than in the classroom. I met several good friends in the restaurant, as well as many many customers.

One disappointed thing in the orientation week - it happened that my first dinner shift in the dining room in Boone Tavern was exactly the night the president offered a gathering for us.

However, there were many guests for dinner on that night, it was a very busy night; after the dinner, we had also to prepare the tables for next day's breakfast and a room of table setting for next days' lunch party.

As a result, I missed the opportunity to participate the President's welcoming party for all the freshmen - I heard it was a wonderful time to meet all the freshmen in the President 's house! (Someone even told me that this was a good chance to meet the college president).

I still remember very well, not me, the other freshman, who was from Indonesia ( M) , two of us together missed this occasion. Nevertheless, we met a very nice sophmore (student manger - K) helped us and taught us for our first dinner of work in Boone Tavern!!