In August, UCR will be welcoming a brand new Class of students to study in our small, cozy Middelburg university. More than a hundred young minds will enter our community, attending classes, joining social events and slowly adapting to the dynamic UCR lifestyle. Like every year, these students will be welcomed through an Introweek designed to have them bond with each other, learn about the different members and societies that exist within UCR, and most importantly, have fun.
It may seem crazy to think that this welcoming of new students is still happening like normal, since few things lately seem to be “normal”. But we, as next year’s RASA board, have been quite busy ever since the semester ended with planning an Introweek that will hopefully be as welcoming, entertaining and exhaustingly fun as the ones from previous years.
Organizing Introweek in itself is no piece of cake. The large scale and unpredictable variables of the events imply that much of your summer is filled with long meetings, late nights answering emails, complaining to your boardies about not receiving replies to those emails, asking the old board for help, and so on and so forth. Any RASA board member will tell you that while Introweek is one of the most rewarding things they did as RASA, it also is one of the most stressful and labor-intensive.
However, if Introweek is a challenging week to organize in itself, the Corona measures in place this summer sadly do not make the job any easier. In the past few weeks, we have been struggling not only with the restrictions put in place because of the pandemic, but also with continuous changes which make organization quite a hassle.
So, you might be thinking to yourself, what will Introweek actually look like? Will there be physical events, or will it all be online? Will the new students be able to come to Middelburg? Will there be some of the most traditional events like Pubcrawl, Sports Day, Battle of the Boards, Meet the Parents etc.? Well, we can’t guarantee things 100%, simply because we don’t know what the measures will look like in a few months. However, looking at the situation right now we are fairly confident that Introweek will, in many ways, be like it always has been. There will be a theme; there will be Parents and Godparents helping us during the week; and right now it looks like most events can happen in person! Because of the 1.5 meter rule, some things have to be readjusted, but we will keep working our hardest to make sure that the newbies can have a proper welcome to the RASA spirit.
We are looking forward to welcoming the new students in August, and hopefully also see some familiar faces around Introweek. The participation of the UCR community in Introweek is as valuable as ever, and will certainly make it a week of fun bonding and new experiences.