Hi my name is Aaron; I am a junior from Colorado Springs Colorado, studying chemical engineering at Tufts. Other than writing for Jumbo Talk, I am a tour guide, I helped run Jumbo Days (our admitted student days in April), I have been a Support Staff member for one of our pre-orientation programs, I make video for the Tufts Observer, and I do research in an environmental engineering lab. This intro, that I can probably say forwards and backwards, starts off every single one of my tours. My goal is to share as many things as I possibly can in the span of 20 seconds with the goal of making some sort of connection with the prospective families visiting Tufts. I hope that people don’t just pick me for my major because in all honesty, college is so much more than your major. There are so many more things to explore and to fall in love with. Over the course of the next few blogs, I’m going to talk about some of my favorite activities at Tufts, all of which I didn’t start until after my first semester. In this blog: Pre-orientation and The Observer.
Pre-Orientation
Pre-orientation programs take place the week before first-year orientation which takes place the week before classes start. This is a huge plus, in my opinion, because if you live far away, you don’t need to travel all the way to Boston for a weekend orientation like some colleges have only to travel back home 48 hours later. When I started at Tufts, there were four pre-orientations: FOCUS (Freshman Orientation CommUnity Service), TWO (Tufts Wilderness Orientation), GO (Global Orientation), and FIT (Fitness and Individual Development at Tufts). In the last two years, Tufts has added two new programs: CAFÉ (Conversation, Action, Faith, and Education), and SQUAD (Students’ Quest for Unity in the African Diaspora). Nearly 75% of this year’s entering class participated in pre-orientation. My first year, I was part of FOCUS. I, along with seven other first year students, and two seniors traveled around the greater Boston area doing some really awesome community service projects. Not only was FOCUS a great opportunity to help out in the communities surrounding Tufts, it was also an opportunity to meet some of my best friends at Tufts. I am still great friends with the people I met at FOCUS, and my friends who have done other programs feel similarly about the people they met.
Tufts Observer
Tufts has a number of different student run publications on campus. One of my favorite is the Tufts Observer, a biweekly campus magazine. I recently joined the magazine as a video producer. A lot of my friends were already in the Observer, and when I heard that they were looking for people to make video, I jumped on the opportunity. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve made some really great videos as well as met amazing people. Because people at Tufts are interested in so many different things, everyone brings something different to the table, and I think we all benefit from hearing a variety of different perspectives. Tufts is a place where you can really love your field of study and really love the things you do outside of academics. People at Tufts like to explore the intersections of sometimes seemingly disparate topics. The Observer gives me a platform to have important conversations about my passions.