Training to be a Guide

Since I applied to be a Uniguide for Auckland University this year, which involves taking some first year students around, showing them around the campus and keeping in touch with them for a few weeks, I was required to attend a two day training session on Thursday and Friday,

At first I thought I'd be a loner since I didn't know if any of my other friends were going to be a Uniguide this year. Fortunately it turns out my Rutherford friends Estee, Pita, Neha and Amber, my intermediate school friend Grainam (who was actually one of the Uniguide leaders!), my Health Science friend Sol and my..other friend Dominica were doing it so I wasn't alone! I spent most of the time sitting and hanging out with Estee and Pita though. I hope I didn't bother them too much!

The format of the day was that we started off with some ice-breakers which saw us start off with some aerobics at the uni recreation centre. Let's just say they're not my usual dance moves! We also got into two circles, an inner and an outer circle, with each pair facing each other. We then had 10 seconds to get to know the person before the inner circle of people had to move to the person on their left and then we'd get to know that person for 10 seconds, and so on. It was quite interesting despite only having enough time to get to know the person's name and their degree! There were quite a few engineering students and commerce students! I really shouldn't have supported myself on my knuckles as I scraped a bit of skin!

We concluded with a few boys vs girls games where we had to come up with chants, and do some other jumping game. I was a bit clueless as I couldn't hear what the leaders were telling us to do!

After that we had some snacks provided to us for lunch (I couldn't eat any of it so I grabbed some and took them home to feed my family!).

We spent the rest of the day listening to this woman who gave us a session on leadership and how to be a good leader.It involved everyone in our whole row from one wall of the lecture theatre to the other having to get together to form a human structure! There were some interesting ones that some of the other rows came up with, while the best we could do was form a caterpillar!

We finished off the day by receiving Uniguide training t-shirts! We were told to meet our faculty leaders, but when I went to the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences Uniguide leaders they didn't have my or my pharmacy friend Jacky's name on their list! They gave us each a t-shirt nonetheless. I had to take a large size since there weren't any left. I could probably use it as a towel! (OK a bit of an exaggeration!)

The next day's training followed a similar format. When we had to sign in upon arriving though, I discovered that they had lumped us pharmacy students under Faculty of Science! How dare they!!! OK it's not such a big deal but it was a little odd.

We started off with icebreakers again, this time in the marae though. We were split into groups where we had to come up with a song that included a given word, and we also played this game where we had to make animal sounds. It sounds a lot more fun than how I've just described it!

Once we got back though, it was all talking for the rest of the day, with representatives from the different university services giving short talks on what they offer. We have to take our 1st year students to the different services on the day so they know where and how to access those services. I have to admit I was a bit tired and dozed off slightly! I did bring a book I had borrowed earlier from the university library on legal method and NZ's legal system and learned a few fancy words like 'ratio decidendi' from reading the book while I was supposed to be listening to the speeches! Yay!! I also managed to quickly get away and attend a very brief Dessert Club meeting during lunch!

When the speeches were finally done though, Grainam took a few of us on a brief tour around uni to show us the places we had to show our 1st year students. Because the weather was wet, some of the students were wearing ponchos that had been provided to them. Even though I had brought an umbrella with me, I should've taken a poncho too, since I got a bit drenched!

So now with training all done, it's time to be a Uniguide and guide students around uni!