After COVID-19 subverted plans for a normal school year, administration recognized the need for a second-year transitional program as first-year students’ experiences have hardly been normal.
This fall ETSU will host its first-ever Second-Year Transitional Experience Program which will begin with move-in on Aug. 18 and activities from Aug. 19 to Aug. 21. STEP is focusing its attention on equipping students with the resources and connections they need to find their home at ETSU.
“Although we are doing big entertainment activities with Preview, we’re being very intentional at recognizing that these are second-year students,” said graduate intern of Student Life and Enrollment Sydni Leonard. “While they may not have experience on ETSU’s campus, they have taken classes at ETSU, and they are becoming upper-class students.”
Leonard and Zachary Shephard, graduate interns of Student Life and Enrollment, were charged with the task of creating a second-year transitional program from the ground up. They contacted universities across the nation to see what others were doing, but none of those existing programs are identical to STEP.
The three days of the program will consist of small group meetings with STEP leaders, interest sessions and fun activities that are all geared towards students’ needs.
A registration survey asked students what they felt they missed out on their first year. The top interest sessions requested were adjusting to in-person class expectations and interacting with faculty, connecting their major with a career, being involved on campus, interacting with CPA and navigating the campus community as well as Johnson City.
Leonard remarked on the importance of listening to students and molded activities like a campus scavenger hunt, major fair, games at the CPA, networking with faculty and a destination lunch in downtown Johnson City to address students’ concerns in an interesting way.
“I wanted to be a STEP leader from the second I heard about the opportunity,” said Andrew Davis, a rising senior and honors student. “As a transfer student who entered ETSU in the spring, I know how hard it can be to adapt to campus life without all the support offered to traditional incoming freshmen. For me, being a leader in STEP will allow me to make an impact on incoming students, who have missed on so much of campus life because of COVID-19, by helping them to make friends and integrate into life on campus.”
There are 16 STEP leaders who will begin training on Aug. 15. The program will have 113 participants, allowing for smaller group sizes and a personal experience.
Leonard and Shephard intend to create a program manual after the completion of STEP to act as a resource if the program were to continue and to assess the success of the program. Leonard hopes STEP will boost the retention of second-year students since it offers additional curated support.
Both Davis and Leonard believe more transitional programs, especially for transfer students, could be beneficial to ETSU and the success of its students.
“If the pandemic taught us anything, I think it was to recognize the humanity of others,” said Leonard. “I think that’s going to be super important going into this program because we realize everyone has struggled.”
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