Wildcat Welcome warriors

In the dimly lit McCormick Foundation Center Forum, 20 students wearing tie-dye gather onstage, sweating anxiously as Academic Advisor Daniel MacKenzie grips the microphone.  Pairs of Peer Advisors (PAs) are called up one by one for their first trivia question of the Medill PA showdown. 

The showdown is an event everyone takes too seriously, some PAs say. Still, it is a pillar of the Wildcat Welcome experience for incoming Medill students, and it wouldn’t exist without the effort, commitment and comedy of their PAs.

Every year, a select group of Northwestern students welcome thousands of incoming freshmen to campus. These PAs include sophomores, juniors and seniors, each assigned a pack of fledgling Wildcats entering their respective colleges. But, evidently, a PA is far more than the rigid definition provided by the Northwestern website: yes, they share resources, assist with course registration and support transitional programming. But they are also built in friends, mentors and, sometimes, shoulders to cry on. 

New beginnings

For PAs, the job starts months before Wildcat Welcome. 

Applications open in January, and candidates face a selective process. The PA program requires short response essays, a group interview and, for first-time applicants, an individual interview. 

“That was my first time being nervous for an interview in a long time,” Medill fourth-year Natalie Wendt says. “I really, really wanted it.”

Hundreds of students apply annually despite the major time commitment and lack of pay. After several weeks of anticipation, successful applicants receive their acceptance notifications, marking the end of one long wait and the start of another one.

The job begins with a one-day “lunch retreat” at the beginning of Spring Quarter, where PAs are introduced to their Peer Advisor Leadership Training Course board group (PALTC) and the head PAs assigned to each group. Weekly two-hour-long training sessions take place throughout the spring and leaders return for PA “summer camp” four days before new student move-in. 

During this intensive process, PAs learn the ins and outs of being a good mentor, a True Northwestern Dialogues (TNDs) director and a student expert on their respective undergraduate school. They are restricted from talking about their extracurriculars to ensure incoming students choose their own paths. Discussing Northwestern’s drawbacks is also off-limits, as PAs are told to make sure their top priority curating a positive and hopeful environment.

But Wildcat Welcome isn’t just about fun. One of the more serious aspects of the program are TNDs. These workshops demand thorough preparation as the PAs discuss safe practices, sexual abuse resources, mental wellness and a myriad of other challenges new college students face. PAs are given binders full of instructions and guiding questions intended to help them structure TND discussions on administrative presentations. Hampton described her freshmen as “taken aback” by the sexual safety theater production. She says the ensuing group TND was particularly tense.

Still, being a PA isn’t all work. Community and socialization is heavily emphasized during the training process. PA summer camp holds tournaments between board groups and a variety of games in between training sessions. Weinberg fourth-year and two-time PA Shine Seon enjoyed the four consecutive days of bonding and rehearsal of the annual PA dance.

Welcome one and all

Final preparations mean event briefings, an early move-in date and free backpacks before the freshman arrive on campus and the PAs are thrown into a sea of purple.

“I really wanted [my students] to like me and also feel comfortable around me as someone who was going to lead them,” Medill fourth-year and three-time PA Raghav Khosla says, reflecting on his first PA experience. 

Even as years pass, the thrill of being a first-time PA remains. 

“I was so excited — I literally kept saying to them, ‘I hope I’m not scaring you guys,’” Hampton says. “I wanted them to be as excited as I was. [The PAs] are here for a week before they come, so we’re really anticipating their arrival. It kind of feels like Christmas day.”

For many PAs, it was exhilarating to be standing on the opposite end of Wildcat Welcome. Hampton describes feeling a huge responsibility since she was these students’ first connection. Now that she understands how much work PAs put into the welcome process, Hampton says she was “jumping up and down” as she waited for her new ‘Cats.

Then, the strictly regimented preparations become more personalized, matching the unique personalities of each PA. Medill second-year Carter Chau and Wendt planned an Insomnia Cookies picnic; Khosla once took his group to the movies and on a walking tour of his favorite restaurants and stores. 

“The programming through Wildcat Welcome can be really long and overwhelming,” says Hampton. “But a lot of [my students] admitted the programming helped [distract them] from feeling homesick. That’s the purpose … to put you in a headspace of ‘OK, you’re a college student now, don’t think about the past, just be present in this moment.’”

Positive impact

Some first-year students say their PAs made their Wildcat Welcome enjoyable.

Bienen first-year Yiming Jia described the extra friendliness the PA groups brought to the Bienen scavenger hunt where students toured the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center for Musical Arts building, taking pictures of rooms they were sent to find. Becoming acclimated with classmates and laughing over poor quality photos became a favorite memory of his from the eventful welcome week.

The efforts of the PAs seemed to have a high payoff, as students explained feeling more relaxed about their welcome experience knowing that they had someone to rely on.

“Having a PA made [Wildcat Welcome] a lot easier to navigate,” Jia says. “They put a lot of effort into helping us.”

After all the excitement, students and PAs alike say they emerge with new wisdom, adopted from the intensive yet rewarding process. 

“I think I learned a lot about myself and my capabilities,” Chau says. “It taught me a lot about leadership [and] being responsible for other people.”

Reminiscence

Wildcat Welcome is a once-in-a-lifetime experience — for most incoming students, anyway. Being a PA allows older students to experience it once again. But what is so special about this program that makes people willingly give up a week of their summer and many hours during Spring Quarter?

For many PAs, it is the idea that they are reciprocating the passion and guidance that they once received. 

For example, Hampton cites her own PA as being influential in her decision to apply. She recalled how reassured she felt, walking up to a calm, organized PA who made the experience as easy as possible. She hoped to bring that same guidance to incoming students.

For Khosla, the relationships formed with other PAs kept him coming back.

“I was able to branch out a lot more because of that community,” Khosla says. “I was able to interact with people across different majors, different schools, different years.”

Even after Wildcat Welcome, connections among PAs and students continue to grow. Hampton says she became close friends with her PA as the year went on, collaborating on The Dolphin Show together. 

“It’s just really fun to become friends with someone you used to look up to,” she says. “I genuinely really loved my PA.”

Outside of the relationships PAs form with each other and with their students, they also have the potential to help cultivate students’ first friend groups, which can last long after Wildcat Welcome concludes.

“It was all very rewarding, especially seeing my students toward the end of the week when I could tell that they were becoming closer friends and more comfortable with each other,” Wendt says. “Being a PA helps you fall in love with Northwestern all over again.”

Print design by Rainee Li and Leila Dhawan.