Orientation Workshop

Amherst HSTEM 2020 Spring

By Nicole Chung ’22 & Marie Fagan ’22

Introduction

This workshop will be focused on introducing and preparing first-year students for being a human in STEM at Amherst, grounded in their STEM experiences thus far from prior educational contexts and their goals going forward in their education. Although not all first-year students may have the intention of declaring a STEM major or perhaps ever even taking a STEM course, it is critical that all first-year students understand that academic choices and tendencies can often grow to be significant parts of our identities, shaping everything from our critical thinking skills to our preferred news outlets to our friend networks to our career paths. Even if people can’t relate to falling in or out of love with STEM specifically – for example, say someone has always been glued to the idea of being a lawyer – the guiding questions and overarching framework of the workshop will be designed to include those people, too, offering students broad chances to explore how they grew to love what they love and what barriers have come in the way of that passion. Although this workshop will obviously open up questions about all sorts of academic interests, we want to be clear that it was designed by HSTEM students with a specific vision of encouraging interested students to stick with their STEM major or the pre-health track as opposed to falling into the “pre-med dropout” trap, which has particularly been the case at Amherst College with students of color.

What is our motivation for implementing this program? What does it bring that other orientation programs do not have?

Our orientation workshop will be a built-in program scheduled as a squad meeting (mandatory on the app!), and will bring together two to three squad groups as opposed to being merely another group squad meeting. The goal set forth by the program is to foster a space on campus to be open and comfortable with peers about educational experiences, particularly in STEM, and to encourage open discussion about individual stories in order to make systemic change at Amherst College. Inspired by programs like “Taking the Leap,” “Social Justice and Leadership,” and HSTEM class discussions, our workshop will not only benefit the students as an opportunity to have these conversations and feel welcome in the academic space, but allow us as facilitators to educate and help relay information to faculty and administration. Because orientation can often feel jam-packed with lecture, talking-at-you-style programming and learning, we want to create a space where students are the agents of their own learning by simply talking to one another in a more relaxing, less didactic environment.

What will this workshop look like?

The workshop would be able to occur in spaces typically occupied by Orientation groups during a regular squad meeting. With 2/3 groups in attendance, there would ideally be 2/3 Orientation Leaders, a Leap leader volunteer, and 2 representative alumni from the HSTEM course. Potentially, we could consider having a faculty member in attendance as well to help translate the discussion to the faculty.

Workshop procedure (75 min) 

  • 25-30 students (2 Orientation groups) 
  • 2 OLs 
  • 1 Leap Leader 
  • 2 HSTEM students 
  • Introduction (5 min) 
    • Explain the format of the workshop (OLs can do this) 
    • Explain that we want to mix different orientation groups to meet new people ○ HSTEM student leaders: acknowledge where this workshop originated and why it exists in the way it does (as opposed to another boring speech where people talk at you), and how it grew out of the 2020 spring iteration of the course 
    • Establish goal of sparking conversation about diversity grounded in academic/student experience 
    • Establish that it’s important to talk about STEM specifically rather than humanities and there’s a history of exclusion at Amherst (Amherst Uprising)
  • Icebreakers (30 min) 
    • Concentric circle activity (10 min) 
      • One group forms an outer circle, one group forms an inner circle. 
      • Each matchup gets one minute and the prompts are more identity-based – not too deep, but a great warmup 
        • E.g. what was your favorite TV show growing up? What is a scent you associate with home? Why did you choose Amherst College/what path led you to Amherst? What is one of your favorite hobbies? If you were left on a desert island and you could only bring 3 foods/drinks/songs/items, what would you take? If you  were to have coffee with any celebrity or famous person from any  time period, who would you choose and why? 
    • “Where the west wind blows” activity (20 min) 
      • The idea here is to get us thinking about STEM experiences in the context of academic equity and accessibility. 
      • Explain that the first 10 minutes can be improvised by students talking about their own characteristics, perhaps encouraging them  to get progressively “deeper” as they go 
      • the last 10 minutes will be narrated by this script. 
      • Script: The West wind blows for… 
        • Anyone who has ever taken a STEM course 
        • Anyone who has ever been to office hours 
        • Anyone who has ever wanted to change their course of study or academic path 
        • Anyone who did change their course of study or academic path 
        • Anyone who has ever failed a test 
        • Anyone who has ever felt like grades are more important than learning 
        • Anyone who has ever felt like their teacher was not accessible outside class 
        • Anyone who has ever felt like they were struggling alone in a class 
        • Anyone who has ever felt like STEM was not “for” them 
        • Anyone who has ever been discouraged from pursuing their passions 
        • Anyone who has ever had a mentor in their passion 
        • Anyone who has ever felt underrepresented in their field 
    • Breakout groups (20 minutes) 
      • Break out into 5 groups (of roughly 6 students each). Each one should be “staffed” by one facilitator to keep group discussions on track. 
      • Each group should reflect on the questions that came up and what they found surprising, etc. 
        • What were your general thoughts and feelings on the last half of the West wind blows activity? 
        • What were some common themes you sensed in the last half? What do you think we’re trying to get at? 
        • Why is it important to focus on academic interests as a facet of our identities? 
        • Have you ever had an experience where you felt like your academic interests enhanced or prevented your inclusion in a particular setting, educational or social? OR do you feel like your experience academically has so far been pretty neutral? 
        • Who are some figures in your life that you feel have affected your academic pathway? 
    • Larger Group Discussion/Reflection (20 min) 
      • This discussion should be more centered on how we apply what we’ve learned today moving into our first semester of Amherst / bringing the small breakout group conversations into our first semester. 
        • Go-around question: moving into your first semester of Amherst and the beginning of a new academic journey, what is your biggest takeaway from today and listening to each other’s experiences? 
        • After go-around (and time-permitting), ask the following questions: 
          • What type of environment do you hope to have in an Amherst classroom? 
          • What are your expectations of an Amherst classroom? 
          • How can we foster an environment of inclusivity both in and beyond the classroom? 
          • How can professors encourage students to stick with their passions, even when challenges arise? 

Reflections

We, Nicole Chung and Marie Fagan ‘22, devised this workshop as a way to introduce students to the STEM discrepancies that can often arise in any higher education setting, and unfortunately, have bubbled up at Amherst in the last decade particularly. Orientation is about not just familiarizing new students with Amherst but also group bonding and community building. While several mandatory measures are already in place to ensure that first-year students engage with politically hot topics, such as racial discrimination, Title IX policies, and bystander intervention training, we felt there was a gap in terms of naming and delving into one’s academic passions as an identity facet, whether that be a pursuance of STEM or humanities. STEM at Amherst, however, has historically caused divisions along the lines of race and socioeconomic status, and so we felt the need to create space for conversation about these discrepancies before the academic year commences. The HSTEM course has brought to light so many factors that can shape one’s academic pathway, particularly as it intersects with STEM interests, and to be able to engage with and name those factors at an earlier stage in one’s college career would be imperative to increasing student awareness of these topics. In addition, as participants in orientation and leap programs in the past, we have witnessed and experienced first-hand the value of having space to share individual stories. Ideally, this program would be able to be a catalyst for creating open discussion about the ways in which our education does and does not serve us, and to stand up for our peers in these spaces.