The week-long First-Year Orientation allows first-years to get acquainted with campus life ahead of the academic year. Led extensively by students themselves the program depends on collaboration and the incorporation of past-year feedback.
First Year Fellows and Bruno Leaders, along with Director Mary Jordan and Assistant Director Susi Abboud of New Student Programs and Community Initiatives in the Office of Residential Life, are the backbone of the orientation program.
“It is very much by students and for students,” said Jordan. “You see the fingerprints of the Bruno Leaders, Fellows, Meiklejohn Peer Advisors and Meiklejohn Leaders all over it, and I think that’s why it’s such a success.”
When applying to become a Bruno Leader, Shrey Mehta ’26 said he wanted a chance to experience orientation again. “It was one of my, if not my favorite, week at Brown in the last two and a half years,” he said.
“Bruno Leaders and Meiklejohns do a good job of removing that power dynamic between a mentor and a mentee,” Mehta added, saying that he interacts with first-years the same way he does with friends.
First Year Fellows take on a unique role in attending to the “backend of the entire orientation experience,” explained Kris Lee ’26.
Ivy Zhuang ’25, another First Year Fellow, added that transitioning from a Bruno Leader means that her job “shifts from taking care of your group of first-year students to the overall vision of orientation.”
According to Zhuang, the First Year Fellows and their supervisors — Jordan and Abboud — work closely as a team.
“They’re very open to feedback and improvement,” Mehta said.
Lee emphasized that a key feature of being a Bruno Leader is the flexibility in shaping Bruno Group activities. Though the First Year Fellows give Bruno Leaders frameworks to consider in structuring their day, the final decisions ultimately rest on Bruno Leaders.
“For example, on the last day, we had campus tours,” Mehta said. “I was like, ‘Let’s extend this tour downtown.’ So I took them along the river, and we went to Tizzy K’s, the ice cream truck.”
“I wanted to do things in a meaningful way, and not as an autonomous activity, and I think that really worked,” Mehta said. “If you have an idea on the spot, you have full liberty to take it.”
A week before orientation, Bruno Leaders attend on-campus training sessions, Zhuang said. “The feedback we got from previous years was that it tended to be really exhausting,” she said. In response, the sessions incorporated interactive activities while the overall training schedule was shortened.
Zhuang said one remaining challenge is that the training “can feel slightly repetitive” for returning Bruno Leaders. This year, a panel where returning Bruno Leaders advised new leaders alleviated the problem, but it remains a present issue for the First Year Fellows.
During that period, Bruno Leaders bond together. Zhuang said her favorite part of the training is the “traditions,” such as karaoke night and Jeopardy night, that “always bring everyone together.”
A few changes were also made to the orientation itself. The traditional ice cream social was hosted at both Keeney Quadrangle and Pembroke Quadrangle. Bruno Groups, which were usually formed based on residence halls, were picked randomly.
“Student feedback is what drives orientation improvements,” Jordan told The Herald. This year, students were asked to fill out a feedback form after every event, Zhuang said.
“With the Class of 2027’s feedback in mind, NSO included more moments of rest and reprieve, sensory zones and tools, and low-stakes late-night programming this year,” Jordan said.
Mehta praised the orientation leaders, saying they “found a really good way to balance bonding time and structured activities as well with just time to explore, get used to the campus feel.” He added that his own experience of first-year orientation was “really back-to-back and hectic.”
Though orientation only lasts one week, the connections among first-year students and other Bruno Leaders are far more long-lasting, Lee said.
“It’s a really good opportunity to build long-lasting connections, even after freshman year,” Mehta said. “I think people might be worried sometimes that the window of meeting people ends after freshman year, but I think being a Bruno Leader proved that that window is so open at any point in college.”
“I could not have imagined it to go any better,” he added.
