With most classes continuing online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Mathematics has had to adapt other aspects of campus life, such as orientation.
The Fall 2020 orientation week, which runs from September 1st to September 7th, is completely virtual.
The nearly 2,600 incoming Faculty of Mathematics students are therefore experiencing an orientation like none before. The faculty’s orientation teams have expended great effort to recreate the fun and interactive aspects that are usually experienced by incoming students.
The Math Orientation teams use various online tools to create that human interaction so students will feel connected to each other, their professors and everyone at the university.
“Despite everything being online right now, we really want to make sure students are not feeling overwhelmed by university,” Kanan Sharma, a third-year student and member of the math undergraduate orientation team, says. “We understand the reality of the world we’re living in right now, so even though we can’t get to meet the first-year students in person, we’re trying to make this the best experience we can for them.”
The faculty is officially doing four major events this year. The first event, traditionally done every year, is the Math Dance. Incoming students usually gather on one of the faculty’s lawns where they are taught the dance they then perform as a group.
This year’s students were taught the dance via Zoom and Facebook and asked to submit videos. The dance videos will be shown during the closing ceremony.
“We were able to have more than a third of our first-year students attend our opening event live, and then those who weren’t able to join live can watch the video on the Math Faculty Facebook page, and it will also be posted on YouTube,” Eli Margolis, a Statistics and Actuarial Science major and member of the undergraduate math orientation team, says.
On Friday, September 4th, the team held another live activity, Faculty Feud. The game show had five professors compete against the five undergraduate orientation leaders to answer math-related questions. For the game show, only the contestants and organizers are generally present with everyone else watching remotely.
On Saturday, September 5th incoming students were placed in their Math Ready Teams groups based on their major for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session. They can pose questions to upper-year undergraduates in their programs about life in and out of the classroom.
The week’s virtual activities cumulate with a closing ceremony ‘Earn Your Tie’ in front of the historic Pink Tie that hangs on the side of the M3 building. First-year math students will have access to Instagram stickers they can use to receive a virtual tie but will also eventually get a real pink tie. During the ceremony; administrators, orientation leaders, professors, and the dean will address the students.
On September 11th, attention will turn to the graduate students for their virtual orientation workshop. The dean, associate deans, and all the student associations and services such as the grad student association, writing center, AccessAbility services and the mathematics librarian will be introduced to the incoming students.
In addition, both undergraduate and graduate students will go over academic integrity and be informed about safety training.
“We’re committed to giving our graduate students the best experience possible and all the information they need even though it’s virtual,” Bernice Ma, recruitment and engagement officer for graduate students, says. “We are using new software to create interactive games and fun, unique ways to engage students.”