Many people believe that college is a whole new world compared to high school, getting settled into a new routine can be complicated or confusing. That’s why California State University, Northridge (CSUN) helped incoming freshmen tremendously by providing the “What’s Next?” meeting held on February 26.
Edgar Meneses, one of CSUN’s outreach team, has a variety of topics he discusses from student orientation, scholarships, important deadlines, and student housing. He believes that people who attended the meeting will gain more knowledge about the campus.
“I hope it would shed light onto subjects like the application process, the reality of college, and being able to feel more comfortable about the college itself,” he said.
Meneses even talks about his excitement that attendees asked questions. He explains that he heard a lot of personal questions such as majors they are interested in, what students were excited about, as well as some students being curious about the engineering major, programs they offer, and even the fact that students have to pay for orientation plus that its mandatory incoming students attend. Menses stated, “It makes me feel good about my job because I am helping students learn more about the campus and also discovering what best fits them.”
He hopes that he helped each attendee to his extent.
“Obviously, I am unsure how much information everyone grasped but I tried my best to give out as much information as I could and answer as many questions that were asked,” remarked Meneses.
Lorin Abarr, one of Kennedy’s college counselors, expresses his hopes of what students gained from the meeting. He explains how many students have anxiety transitioning from high school to college. “I really hope that by students attending this meeting they feel more confident in regard to what steps they need to take and shouldn’t feel uncertain about CSUN,” Abarr said.
Meneses even stated how other universities should offer an outreach person or team. Although most Cal States do, it would be nice if private universities offered it too to release some stigma around college life.
Abarr agreed with the statement from Meneses. “Many students experience summer melt, which is best described as students feeling too overwhelmed or discouraged about college so they decide not to go anymore,” he said.
By offering these types of meetings Abarr hopes that this allows students to stay on top of what they need to do not just at CSUN but other colleges as well.
Abarr believes that the meeting helped many students. He goes on to say, “Many students I spoke with felt like they had a better handle of what necessary steps needed to be taken and especially that the CSUN outreach person, Meneses, did not over complicate the presentation and broke it down thoroughly.”
