Today was my first day of orientation at Trinity Business School. Nerves were high because I truly didn’t know what to expect. I’m in another country, not a familiar face in site and I’m studying a whole new subject. Needless to say, I was pretty anxious. The class on my orientation schedule was titled “Behind the Curtain” which was odd to me because that sounded like a performing arts class, but I went anyway and what had perplexed me previously turned out to be exactly what I needed to make my transition into Trinity very smooth and give me the comfort I needed moving forward.
During the “Behind the Curtain” workshop, the instructors asked us what our biggest fears were for this year as well as what we were looking forward to. Peoples hands were going up left and right and before I new it, pages on pages were full. It was amazing to see how many similarities I had with my fellow classmates; the fear category in particular because those are the issues no one really wants to share. Things like “Not performing well in class”, “Not being accepted”, “Being away from home”, were some of the worries that went up on the board and I remember thinking, “Wow.. I’m feeling the exact same way”. We spoke about each and every concern that was expressed, and in doing that, I felt I knew my classmates on an even deeper level. It was extremely comforting to know that I wasn’t alone in my feelings about this new journey I was soon to embark on.
Today was exactly what I needed. I’m very happy that the “Behind the Curtain” workshop was a part of orientation. It gave 109 strangers a common place and an opportunity to be raw and real which I think we all needed in order to go about this year level headed. These people are from all over the world. We have a different way of communication, different culture, different life. But even with us being so different, in that moment, we realized we were all the same.
