Y groups continue after orientation

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    By MARCI VON SAVOYE

    Unfamiliar faces, group cheers and team competitions … it almost seems like summer camp, except mom and dad aren’t picking you in a week and this “camp” lasts the entire semester.

    But Y-Groups and Y-Leaders were invented to keep freshmen from information overload or anxiety attacks.

    “Coming [to BYU] was traumatic, walking around and not knowing anybody that I saw. Having a Y-Group gave me a good base of people, at least I had some friends. It makes the campus a lot more personal,” said Y-Group Leader JoAnn Johnson, a sophomore pre-management major from Houston.

    For the first time this year the end of orientation does not mean the end of Y-Groups. Part of the Y-Group leaders’ responsibilities are to keep in contact with their freshmen each month through November.

    Sallie Larsen, the coordinator of student activities said the “extended orientation” was more of a “time-release method.” Freshmen can suffocate when they are force-fed information about moving in, choosing a major, using the library and getting around campus all at once. Larsen said that because this year the freshmen will be receiving information in a more timely — as-they-need-it — fashion, it will be more easily digested.

    “You have three days of orientation, we throw out all this stuff and the freshman is like ‘all I care about is where’s my room and where do I sleep, where do I eat and who are my friends going to be,'” Larsen said. “Down the road, we find out that they need more help than they got from the first week. We’ve done a couple things where we asked the Y-Group leaders to help them with a few extended activities.”

    The orientation activities throughout the semester include a freshmen Q&A session in mid-September, the “Title of Honor,” held in the beginning of October where Y-Groups meet to creatively express their feelings on the Honor Code and a behind-the-scene tour of the Museum of Art in December. Also, freshmen will receive a “passport” and by attending orientation events as well as completing 10 of the specified extracurricular activities such as attending an athletic event, hiking the Y, or using UTA, freshmen will receive a free T-shirt that will get them into certain campus events free.

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