Future freshmen will now have a new group of friendly faces to help ease them into campus life. As an addition to New Student Orientation, the Peers Helping Incoming New Students Program will unite upperclassmen with anxious incoming students.
PHINS sprung out of the Undergraduate Assembly, which hopes to improve the process for freshmen entering the Penn community.
The initiative will begin in the fall with the incoming Class of 2008. Upperclassmen who join the program will undergo training to prepare them for some of the questions and concerns that freshmen and their parents have in the first days of the semester.
"It's not supposed to be a replacement for peer advisers -- it's just additional support," said Troy Majnerick, NSO coordinator and creator of PHINS.
Majnerick developed the idea of PHINS after the UA had been discussing an additional outreach program for freshmen.
Upperclassmen who volunteer -- or "PHINies," as they will be called -- will go on a retreat in the spring, and then will take consecutive training sessions the three Wednesdays after that.
"There is a 'graduation' ceremony at the end of" training, said Cynthia Wong, a sophomore in Wharton and a PHINS collaborator. "When they come back in the fall, there is another training session to welcome kids to campus."
One of PHINS' main goals is not only to ease freshmen into the college experience, but also to bridge the gap between freshmen and upperclassmen at Penn. Those just entering Penn usually find camaraderie with other freshmen, while upperclassmen, already situated at Penn, tend to stick together.
"One of the major goals is to create a sense of community among the PHINS [participants], but the main goal is interaction between upperclassmen and incoming freshmen," Wong said.
"If you don't feel comfortable from the get-go, it sets a bad tone for the year, but if you have upperclassmen to guide you ... it makes it psychologically and socially more comfortable," Wong added.
College freshman Shakirah Simley -- a member of the UA and a collaborator on PHINS -- understands the pressures of trying to become comfortable.
"You're walking down Locust Walk and there are a lot of clubs and it's overwhelming," she said of one of the things PHINS wants to change. "We sort of have a new idea to rework it and put it in a different setting and have it be a bit more organized," she added.
The plan is to create a club fair that allows students, especially freshmen, to have "face time with the people who are in the clubs," so they will be more informed when picking activities.
The committee has already been approached by various groups with ideas on how to strengthen the process of club promotion and student interest.
Simley says she was lucky to have been involved with Penn's Pre-Freshman Program -- which allows students to come a month early and get to know Penn -- but she acknowledges that most are not as fortunate.
"I'm sure a lot of kids had a hard time because it's a large university, and it's easy to get swallowed up," Simley said.
