Cairo, October 4th, 2022 — Last week, our campus was buzzing with anticipation and energy as we welcomed our newest cohort into our gates. Starting Tuesday, September 27th, The Universities of Canada held its Stranger Things theme, student-led orientation. This year, we welcomed Ryerson Cairo students on board as part of our ever-growing community. Our aim throughout this orientation was to provide a warm welcome to our new students, supply them with the tools and resources they need, and help facilitate the transition from high school to university students. To implement this objective, our peer leaders attended a two-day peer-leading program to ensure that they would be able to grant our new students any support they might need.  

Throughout the orientation, activities were distributed over three days. On the first day of orientation, our students got to attend welcome remarks from our esteemed staff and faculty, introductory sessions about our Smart campus, the different facilities available for every necessity, and hear from multiple faculty members to help gain a better understanding of all the services that our campus has to offer. Moreover, part of our orientation revolves around wanting to facilitate communication between our students. To break the ice and encourage bonding, we had our students participate in several group-based, team-building activities.  

On the second day of orientation, we emphasized bringing our students together as a community. To do so, our peer leaders guided their respective teams through critical-thinking activities to help demonstrate the skills our university highlights. After the group activities, our students had the opportunity to brainstorm and put together ideas for student-led organizations. In their respective groups, our first-year students sat with their peer leaders and were given guidance on creating an appealing proposal. Each group would present their ideas for a chance to receive seed funding to start the organization during the Fall 2022 semester.  

The last day of our orientation was all about our student campus life. After properly acquainting our students with our campus, we wanted to showcase a value that UofCanada promotes dearly; work-life balance. Students exhibited their problem-solving skills and creativity through multiple challenges and activities. Still, the highlight was our on-campus paintball matches as part of our entertainment function. Furthermore, our students explored our existing student organizations at their booths and had the chance to sign up should they wish to participate in the coming academic year.  

All in all, we are excited to have introduced our new students to our campus and to have helped familiarize them with our university life. To have had the chance to see so many bright and creative personalities in action was an honor, and we anticipate this to be a great start to a new academic year. 

Class of 2026, we officially welcome you as UofCanada students and hope you’re as excited for the next four years as we are.