I arrived at Stockton unsure of what to expect. There were so many new faces in a place that felt so unfamiliar, a place that I had yet to explore. Although I was immensely excited to embark on a new journey and create a whole new world of experiences for myself, I was also anxious about the instability that comes along with change. Everyone received the key to their new dorm rooms as well as verbal confirmation of which tribe they would be part of during SOAR (Stockton Orientation Adventure Retreat). I was told that I would be part of purple tribe and although I didn’t know what this meant at the time, my first objective was to determine if anyone else I already knew was also on purple tribe. This seemed an impossible task considering that at this point in time I didn’t know many people here at Stockton, but one friend happened to also be on purple tribe. This gave me a comforting sense of security and I proceeded to move my things into my new dorm room.

It seemed like I had just arrived at Stockton and we were already preparing to leave. After being served lunch, we met with our tribes where our TALONS introduced themselves. They would be our tribe leaders for the next few days. They were wonderful at motivating everyone to engage with each other through the use of ice breakers and making new friends became an easy task. We loaded our luggage onto the buses, attended a few presentations regarding the trip, and finally advanced towards Camp Matollionequay where we would be staying from August 28th until August 30th, 2012.

There was so much to take part in at SOAR. Everyone participated in a variety of ice breakers as well as other fun games. Each tribe worked together to create a chant that would be used to express everyone’s pride in their own tribe throughout the trip. Everyone got very engaged and enthusiastic with this. A campfire was held where each tribe acted out a skit pertaining to their experiences at the camp. They were all quite humorous due to the inclusion of various imitations of TALONS and staff members of the camp. In terms of other activities there was swimming, archery, and boating. There were low ropes courses that were used as team building exercises and high rope courses that allowed everyone to test their abilities and face their fears in an effort to have fun. Interestingly enough, it was one of the low ropes courses that resulted in two TALONS falling into a dirty swamp and being covered head to toe in mud. Everyone had such a great time at SOAR and leaving only seemed easy due the desire to no longer sleep in the cabins or take showers with the spiders as well as the knowledge that all the new friends we’d acquired at SOAR were coming with us back to Stockton.

SOAR gave students a chance to connect and make plenty of friends before the start of classes. Stockton staff members as well as those who worked at the camp contributed greatly to the wonderful experience that SOAR continues to be. I would recommend to all incoming freshmen to spread their wings and SOAR right into the beginning of their college experience.