Bear Mind to Empowerment

Bear Mind to Empowerment

At Build-A-Bear Workshop, they do not only just guide you in bringing the common teddy bear to life. Their approach is world wide known because it empowers you. Children love this place because of it's colorful appeal and because it gives them a chance to be creative. At Build-A-Bear, once you pick that special bear that caught your eye as soon as you walked in, you are made more confident in your decision. You are made more assertive in making it just the way you want to. Your view on how you want your bear to look like is reinforced throughout the process whether you want a cowboy penguin or an old fashioned teddy bear. Throughout childhood, a teddy bear represents friendship, trust, and provides comfort. Build-A-Bear embodies these characteristics in how they run their business every day. For this reason, my orientation color team decided it would be ideal to visit this type of work environment in hopes of picking up tips that would be transferable to the NSO work environment; and boy was it! 

In order to bring your bear to life, Build-A-Bear emphasizes six stages to make it happen:

1. CHOOSE ME

2. STUFF ME

3. FLUFF ME

4. DRESS ME

5. NAME ME

6. TAKE ME HOME

During every stage, the Build-A-Bear representative is there to motivate you, from as soon as you walk through the door to the second they hand you your build-a-bear house. He makes sure you are content every step of the way. Our representative attended to our needs, gave us advice, and guided us in how to properly build our bears.The entire process at the end of it all was more meaningful than the product itself. As orientation leaders we want to leave an impact on the first years; motivating them to look back at their orientation process and have them be able to say we as orientation leaders definitely made transitioning into College a lot easier. We want to make the process memorable so that the impact is that much stronger and their first impression of Rutgers is a positive and long lasting one.

"Reflective practices allow us to think about what is occurring around us and then to make meaning from those experiences"

All of these traits that our Build-A-Bear representative possessed can easily be applied to Orientation over the summer. The first years are like the children that walk into Build-A-Bear. They rely on an orientation leader to be there for them, guide them, teach them, and always be available for advice. It is an orientation leaders's job to empower the first year students just like the Build-a-bear representative empowers children, and empowered us during our excursion visit.

Tips to BEAR in mind during Orientation:

1) Build trust: Just as our Build-A-Bear representative established trust from the second we walked in, orientation leaders must do the same. We must build a firm ground by making a impacting first impression and make the students understand that we are there to help them and it is in our best interest to make the first year's first semester the smoothest one.

2) Make if meaningful: Our Build-A-Bear representative had us do a dance when we were putting the heart into our bears, making the process a whole lot personal. We need to put the heart in our first years by relating to them on a personal level, finding out what their interests are so that we may tap into that and make their orientation more meaningful.

3) Stay positive: Our Build-A-Bear representative made it his job to never stop encouraging us every step of the way. During the fluff me stage, I over stuffed my bear. I felt like I made a mistake, but he didn't let me see it that way. He complemented my penguin/bear and told me I was doing a great job. I felt really good about my bear after that. It is extremely important that as Orientation Leaders we always keep a positive attitude and open mind. There will be days where first year's will act up or make mistakes, but we need to strengthen their weaknesses and make them feel good.

4) Have fun: At Build-A-Bear, my color team had a blast. Our representative made it so that we enjoyed every stage. He confided in us his experience working there through stories and was never dull. He even did some of the dance moves for when we put the heart in our bear with us. As orientation leaders we must make orientation as fun as possible, but always keep in mind our purpose.

5) Relay pride: When we dressed our bears, we were encouraged to put Rutgers t-shirts on them. Our representative made us feel proud to be Scarlet Knights even while building a bear. As orientation leaders we must instill pride in the first years prior to the school year starting so that can motivate them to get involved and simply be proud in their decision to attend Rutgers.

6) Assist in any way, unconditionally: No matter what stage we were on, our representative was always there to help. When it came to finally naming our bears, another representative who was not even our main one, came over and suggested the name "Bearemy" to be funny. Unfortunately that is Build-A-Bear's mascot already, but the fact that another representative came over to help when we were not even her group meant a lot to us. They all assisted in any way, shape, or form. During Orientation we must always be there to assist and guide the first years. Without us they would be lost, just like without our representative we would have never been able to build our bears and I, my penguin, who I will always hold close to my heart

I am empowered!