By Logan Monteleone
News Editor
Starting class last week was not the only adventure freshmen and transfer students embarked on during the beginning of their Washington College journeys.
Students welcomed the fall semester after a weekend of kayaking Kent County waterways, learning local history, playing sports, climbing ropes courses, and cooking up good food with new classmates and community members as part of this year’s Orientation Explore! Program.
The program provides first-year students with the opportunity to spend time with new peers who share similar interests and to become familiar with the Chestertown area, according to the WC website. Students choose from a list of activities based on their individual interests ranging from camping and quilting to participating in baking competitions and helping create museum exhibits.
Freshman Carli Morehead said her activity called “Maryland Summer Grill and Chill” was “exactly what the name says.” Students played yard games, went tubing and paddle boarding on the river, and relaxed by the firepit and on the docks at the Hodson Boatouse.
“I think it was really great because a lot of us, when we first started, [were] super quiet [but as] time passed, we all got really close and … got to know one another, and I think that was really great to start out with,” Morehead said. “You have this little group of friends before even the semester started.”
Morehead said she liked the schedule for orientation and found it fitting that Explore! activities followed the two and a half days of information sessions about resources and policies on campus.
Karina Mumford and Camille Mitchell were in an activity called “Pizza Project: Nourishing Minds and Bodies Through Pizza” that involved learning how to make wholesome meals from Dr. Bill Schindler, the founder of Modern Stone Age Kitchen and a former professor in WC’s anthropology department.
Fascinated by the combination of human history, personal experience, and applicable food knowledge shared during the workshop, Mitchell said it did not matter that she is not specifically interested in studying nutrition because the lesson itself was “amazing.”
The workshop lesson “engaged us in a way I didn’t expect to be engaged,” Mumford said.
Peer Mentors, or returning students who guide first-years through the adjustment to college life, help to run the program that Jennifer Schultz, Executive Assistant to the Vice President for Student Affairs, and Assistant Dean for Student Affairs Tricia Biles primarily organize.
Seniors Lauren Paules and Kya Balin-Brooks decided to become Peer Mentors after the two best friends became “instantly connected” on their Explore! trip over three years ago.
“It’s a really good way for [students] to get to know a bunch of different people that probably won’t be in their classes, or they might not see around campus all that much,” Paules said.
The program allows students to “let loose and make new friends” outside of the structured activities led by Peer Mentors in the days right after move-in, Balin-Brooks said.
Peer Mentor and senior Cara Olivarez went to Echo Hill Outdoor School with her Explore! group, and said that participating in both individual and team activities that involved climbing, zip-lining, and rope-swinging helped to build relationships.
“[First-year students] had to really … trust one another, even after meeting maybe an hour ago,” Olivarez said. “It was really cool to see them encourage each other [and] help each other out during these challenges.”
Freshmen Cora Weymes, Angel Parfitt, and Stella Keeney also went to Echo Hill for their orientation trips.
Weymes said that she enjoyed the bonding activities her group engaged in at the outdoor school, and that being in “forced proximity” to new peers allowed for plenty of opportunity to meet new people.
Parfitt said that “getting closer to people you literally have not talked to before” happens quickly on Explore! trips.
Keeney, who was part of the “Experience the Chester River” group that camped on Echo Hill’s historic buyboat and skipjack, said a large part of what made the trip “like an adventure” was spending time with peers in settings outside of the classroom.
Photo courtesy of Jireh Ray
Photo Caption: A group of first-year students made their own sourdough pizzas at Modern Stone Age Kitchen as part of Washington College’s Orientation Explore! Program.