From the outside looking in, the transition to college
seemed easy for Pavan Amin. I’ve known
Pavan since middle school and he has always been a confident person. When he decided to commit to Rutgers, he felt
like he would be able to hit the ground running. His older brother goes to Rutgers, so he was
comfortable with the University’s environment.
In addition, his brother gave him the inside scoop of everything about
Rutgers. After attending his orientation
session he felt even more confident that he would excel the minute he got on
campus. However, the first couple of
weeks were not picture perfect for Pavan.
At first he had difficulty navigating Livingston campus because he was
never shown the campus during orientation.
After a few weeks on campus he encountered another issue, he had very
little spending money. Much later in the
semester he would face another problem.
Pavan struggled to find information about changing his major and school
of study.
When I asked Pavan what he would have liked to change about
orientation, the first thing he said was that he would have liked to see more
of Rutgers. When he went to Orientation
he toured Busch campus and he enjoyed seeing the campus. However, he did not know anything about
Livingston campus, the campus he was assigned to live on. I can recall the first day, when Pavan and I
walked around the campus aimlessly, attempting to discover where certain
buildings were located. We were like
Louis and Clark, two men on a journey navigating unknown territory. However, we lacked the navigation skills of
those two men, so we got lost. Pavan
said that he would have liked to tour the campus that he was living on. This way, when he moved in to Rutgers, the
transition would be that much easier.
He wished that on campus jobs were stressed more during
orientation, so he could have applied for work study. After his first couple of weeks on campus, he
had spent so much of his money and was looking for a way to make some
money. The problem was that he was
unable to get a work study position because he never applied for one in the
summer. So many students do not realize
that they need a job on campus until it’s too late for them to get one. Pavan just wished that the on campus jobs
were stressed more so he could have gotten a job. 
Something else that Pavan would have liked to include in the
orientation program would be information on how to change schools of education
within Rutgers. When Pavan applied to
Rutgers he did not get into the Rutgers Business School. After arriving at Rutgers he was unsure about
how to go about transferring. He felt it
would have been helpful to include more information about this because so many
students want to change their major right after school starts. He would have liked to know who he could talk
to besides the Deans, and how the process actually works. If he knew this information he would have
been able to complete the process in a smoother fashion.
Pavan’s overall experience at orientation was positive, but
he would have made some minor changes. Pavan wished that a tour of Livingston
was given, so he could have known where everything was located. He also would have liked if there was more
said about on campus jobs, so he could have made some extra money. Finally, he would have liked there to have
been more said about how to change majors, so he would have known how to
transfer to the business school. Pavan
told me after his orientation session that it was the first time that he
officially felt like he was a Rutgers student.
Hopefully this summer I can make all my students feel like they belong,
so they all can come to Rutgers with as much confidence as Pavan.
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