Camp Cho-Yeh teaches orientation leaders about teamwork
As you all know, orientation is the program that all incoming students have to go through before they can enroll in their classes for the semester. The students who help run all of the orientation sessions are called orientation leaders. They help set up every session, facilitate and guide incoming students to their perspective destinations. Without these students, orientation would be a disaster waiting to happen.
During the spring semester, I decided to apply to be an orientation leader. I genuinely had no idea what I was signing up for, but a lot of people told me that I would be good at it so I figured “why not?” Fast forward to the summer, and it was time for the orientation leader retreat. Every orientation leader that was hired had to go on a weekend retreat to Camp Cho-Yeh. The weekend allows the new leaders to go through their own orientation while meeting everybody in the group and having a good time.
We all boarded a really nice charter bus, and we were on our way to Camp Cho-Yeh. I didn’t know what to expect because I’d never actually been to a summer camp, but thankfully we were in nice AIR CONDITIONED cabins.
When we settled in, we went through a few training PowerPoints, and then we were split into three teams and put through various team building challenge exercises. These really helped us bond, not only in our individual teams but as a whole orientation leader group. Lastly, we had a big campfire to end the night where we played a bunch of games.
The next day, after a few obligatory presentations on being an orientation leader, we split into our teams again to tackle various challenge courses across the campsite. The first activity we did was where every team member had to hold up a hula hoop with two fingers and bring it down to the ground at the same time without talking. If the hoop began to rise toward one side more than another, we had to start over.
On paper, this sounded really easy, but once we actually started it was one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever done. Eventually, we figured out a system of “stern stares” that would alert our team members to loosen or pick up the slack on their side.
We did another exercise where we had to get our whole group (nine individuals) on a wooden see-saw plank without it touching the ground during the challenge. This was the hardest challenge. We tried it a bunch of different ways, but eventually, we got two of our largest members on opposite sides of the see-saw and had everybody walk slowly onto the plank toward the middle and we were able to succeed.
After a few more exercises, we went back to the main meeting area and had a lip sync battle to end the night.
On the last day, we had our last presentation and relaxed with free time until it was time for us to get back on the charter bus and leave Camp Cho-Yeh. It was a really enriching experience and if anything, it got me genuinely excited to work with all the new orientation leaders this summer.
