Welcome Weekend: A Freshman’s Perspective

While preparing myself for college, I was often told it would be a completely different world. However, no one could quite prepare me for California Baptist University. This school is insanely enthusiastic and brings a whole new meaning to small but mighty.

Let’s start with the Kugel Walk:

My “official transformation” into a Lancer was accomplished by the ceremonial Kugel Walk, but also by a world-record number of high-fives. I am pretty sure there was a point when I accidentally high-fived someone’s face instead of his or her hand. Face injuries aside, as a brand new student to the college experience, I felt very welcomed and appreciated by the upperclassmen and faculty. The high-fives may have been great in number, but the greater number of smiles and genuine statements of “We are so glad you are here!” made me feel a real connection with everyone around me.

First-Year Experience (FYE) was enjoyable, even if my leaders introduced themselves as my “new parents” for the semester and a student got too invested in the group game and hit his head on the projector hanging from the ceiling.

I do understand why we were all placed into the FYE groups, but I miss the days in kindergarten when I could just walk up to the kid on the swings and declare, “You are my friend now.” Why is it that as we grow older we become more shy and stress over the daunting task of introducing ourselves to other people our age?

Meet the Inland Empire:

Meet the I.E. was a cool chance to get to know Riverside and discover its large number of local coffee shops and that cute plant shop that was popular because it gave out free succulents. One aspect of the event I really liked was the opportunity to learn about local churches and practice my faith outside of CBU. Chapel is a great way to connect with God during the week, but finding a church off campus not only gave me a chance to continue my tradition of attending church every Sunday but to also join my friends from other local universities in worshiping the Lord together.

Now to my favorite event of the weekend: Clash ‘n’ Roll.

At first, I was unsure about Clash ‘n’ Roll because I had no idea what Bunco was. Every time someone tried to explain it to me I just did not seem to understand the rules. Once we got to the actual game, however, all of my assumptions about Bunco were thrown out the window.

I still cannot claim to be exactly sure of the rules, but the excitement and rush of the game was perfect, and I genuinely enjoyed playing Bunco and competing with the other students around me. I also loved seeing all of the different “clashing” outfits that people put together and I am glad I stepped out of my comfort zone by dressing up in my craziest clothes, as well.

Overall, Welcome Weekend may have been busy and exhausting, but I learned a lot of helpful things about CBU, and I feel prepared to start my first college semester with confidence.