I am SOAR excited to write this post about the overnight camping experience that kick started my college career. Making the decision to go was hands down the best thing I’ve done in preparation for freshman year. The friends I made and the leadership skills I developed in three days is unmatched to any other thing I have ever done. It has been two months since then and I can honestly say I am still being affected by relationships I built in such a short amount of time.

The first thing that happened for SOAR was check-in which was extremely chaotic. The freshman who went to SOAR had to move in the same day as check-in. Being a commuter, I got to bypass that stressful scene of having to frantically set up my room and say goodbye to my parents. I showed up for the barbeque and at glance, I could feel the community atmosphere and also just knew I would have the time of my life. Everyone was assigned their tribes. I ended up being on sky tribe which was really funny because of all colors, sky? I made fun of it a little in the beginning without fully realizing: a. that would be the premise of my time at SOAR, people saying, “Sky isn’t even a color”; and b. that I would avidly defend the validity of sky being on the visible light spectrum.

It was really awkward at first, meeting my tribe. We all were forced into this disjointed circle by these people called T.A.L.O.N.S. that were W.A.Y. too excited and kept making these weird “SOAR” related puns. No one wanted to talk. Everyone kind of just stared blankly at nearby trees. Then came the icebreakers. And the mind games. And then all hats were off and we bonded. Of course this did not happen as sequentially; there was a bus ride that inadvertently helped break down walls. Since we were already packed like sardines, my tribemates and I were forced to get acquainted for an hour and some on our way to the camping grounds.

There was actually a lot of forced bonding. You were forced to be best friends with your cabin mates who would help you kill spiders in the middle of the night. You were forced to actually eat with people and converse three times a day- one of these family dinners you were forced to host. You were forced to mingle and get to know details about not just the thirty people in your tribe, but about others from the rest of the rainbow. You were forced to open up and contribute to a team and make a chant and skit that you were forced to have pride in. You were forced to have unadulterated fun and stay up way too late. You were forced to identify your lions and take steps toward conquering them. You were forced to take showers with Daddy-Long-Legs and inhale unhealthy quantities of bug spray and sports spray sunscreen. And you loved it.

I encourage all incoming freshman to go because the camp ground was crawling with hot Australians, New Zealanders and beautiful men from the UK, all with panty dropping exotic accents. Seriously though, it was great. I would recite a litany of activities we did but in the end it wasn’t even about what we did but how the experience made us feel, and that is just one of those you-had-to-be-there moments. People who went to SOAR were able to extend the sense of belonging and community to the rest of the freshman class during welcome week who were going through the same anxious, new school, new life jitters we experienced on check-in day. This is because we arrived back on campus with thirty best friends and a hundred other distant-relative-like acquaintances who we were connected to because we shared a super special secret. What secret you ask? That we’re SOAR excited to begin the next chapter of our lives. And we know what a stick really is, how hot is hot, that Johnny likes to whoop, and hopefully by now, who has the magic box.