It feels like I'm finally home, just like the place that I've
longed to be for so long.
And just like with people all around me that I know like, is
gonna become my family. It's just incredible.
When I came here, it was really nice because the advisors, there
were outside welcoming me and they were all really excited,
cheery, I just felt really welcome.
We've been doing most events, like on zoom, there isn't a lot
of like, close social gatherings, which is good.
Because you need to be be careful.
Super unprecedented. And I think the good thing to realize is
like when we all decided that we wanted to coordinate none of
this was happening. So it's kind of been a journey trying to
figure out remote events and the best ways to include remote
students with changing information as recent as like
the day before a week.
whether people are going to be remote or still coming. Oh wait,
we have some new students joining! We kind of set
ourselves to a goal of having one remote event per day that
was fully remote so that everyone could join even the
people that are in person, they just hop in their rooms and get
on the zoom call. So everyone kind of feels like they're on
the same level playing field. Okay, O-Week trivia for $300.
We're doing Jeopardy but for losing questions in jeopardy
instead of getting money. You're allowed to punish your fellow
that's in person with some sort of messy thing whether they pour
water on their head or put their face in whipped cream or crack
an egg on their head. Oh.
And although it's like a very unconventional weekend, we have
our worries. We stepped up to the challenge and it's it's been
going really well and it's awesome to see the new students
enjoying Wiess.
O-Week kind of snuck up on me a lot because we got our schedule,
like a couple days before and I was like, Oh wow, we have
actually a lot of events planned when I wasn't expecting to
be interacting with people that much at all, besides like, you
know, doing my classes and maybe like a zoom or two. But it's,
it's become much more than a zoom or two. I also wasn't
expecting to be in a group, which was a really pleasant
surprise. I've been able to make a bunch of friends in my group.
This is the moment. Our mentality has just work out the
kinks, but like, just keep the heart of like what we're trying
to do. (Cheering R-I-C-E)
O-Week has a specific mission that tries to accomplish in
welcoming students and making sure they feel comfortable. So
whether they're remote or coming here in person, we really try
our best to make sure that they have the tools and are equipped
to enjoy the next four years they have here. About to
matriculate. Rice is just a family. I've always heard that
it's just like such a family kind of deal. So that's really
what bothers me. I know. Of course, on top of that all the
amazing academics I'm still still so grateful to even be
here to be accepted all that good stuff. I'm ready. I feel
every time someone asked me why did I choose Rice, I say Rice
chose me. Now I gotta go in and take my
test right now. When we heard that we were going to plan an
O-Week in a pandemic. I mean, my initial reaction was, oh, how is
this going to be possible? But you know, this past week, I
think walking through the different colleges, we came to
realize how important this was for the new students. And one of
the things we do to show our Sid pride,
we paint up and if y'all want to paint up, it is totally
optional. You're more than welcome to you know, they never
really had a, an official ending or proper ending to their senior
year of high school. I don't know, I think they were all in a
place of worry about how their future would turn out.
And I think having an O Week in person and you know, also having
a really good O-Week remote. I'm in Vermont right now. So did you
just virtually walk through the sallyport? Yeah. Someone brought
me through the whole experience served to help them transition,
you know, from from high school into college.
I think it's just really important
to see that they had a community of people that who also got had
gone through these similar experience that they had. I feel
free like to an extent but I mean a lot of people are like
you know, like, Oh, it's not the same you know, we have to wear
masks social distance I feel good. I'm in a great time. The
alternative is sitting on the couch with my sister's and my
cat. So too many of us too little room. I would love some
milk tea. The Rice experience, I knew that was going to be great.
And I kept looking forward to it throughout senior year.
I'm still overwhelmed and everything is still just so much
better than I thought it was going to be. I feel very safe
here at Rice. You know, we've they've taken the necessary
precautions. We're doing weekly tests we tested before we came I
really I feel safe. I feel safer than I did in my own city. You
know, everybody's wearing masks and social distancing.
One of our residential colleges Will Rice had a couple of cases
of coronavirus, a couple positive tests. There were there
were two to be exact and they they occurred one during move-in
and one shortly
Afterwards, and it was an constantly evolving situation.
And when you have that many people coming to campus, you do
have to expect that things like that are going to happen. And I
think it was important, because it's going to set the precedent
for how we react during the rest of the school year. Even though
this is O-Week, the way that we responded to those positive
cases, is gonna I think really dictate how we respond during
the school year. So we just pretty much isolated people, as
soon as we found out we did a lot more rapid testing as well
as PCR testing. And then we work from that the measures that they
put in place, requiring all students wear masks outside of
their dorm rooms, as well as once weekly testing students for
Coronavirus has been well at least for me, it's it's really
made me feel safe here, as well as made me feel welcome and
enabled to still participate in activities on campus.
Just glad their just giving us the opportunity to just come
here, even though we're in a pandemic so we're socially
distanced, and I'm glad that they're supporting all the
diversity and social injustice and like they're aware of what's
going on in
They're addressing it here at the campus. I think a lot of us
that are involved in a week are involved in it because our
experiences were so great.
Just because we were coming in a year that there wasn't a
pandemic or something like that doesn't mean that they shouldn't
have any less of an O-Week. So I think that was really a big a
big theme. What we were trying to soldier on was just doing it
for these new students.
Mohammed Mohammed.
So I'm currently doing O-Week the week from Cairo.
At first a bit disappointed that I couldn't make it in person
But with like, the whole events and like talking to my O-Week
family is pretty welcoming. Like it's really well. We're pretty
like bonded in several things. I think we're like, starting to
create our friendships. Happy o be virtually at Ric