I have worked as an Orientation Leader at my college in Madrid, Spain and it was extremely hectic every new semester. A new semester meant a new boatload of kids, often over 100 who had never come to Spain before. It was our job to make them feel welcome, comfortable, but also to coordinate with the faculty to make sure everything was running smoothly. Our busiest day was always pickup day, where we had arranged for almost all of the new students to arrive at the airport on the same day so that we could transport them on the bus to our campus. It was always chaos, finding out how many kids were on each flight and running through the giant airport to pick up some kids arriving from a different terminal. We had a spreadsheet that was supposed to be split up by terminal and had the flights with all the kids in chronological order. However, the assistant who had made the spreadsheet had completely messed it up, with different flights and terminals all over the place. My orientation partner and I immediately knew that she had messed up the data, and I took it upon myself to figure out a way for my brain to organize the data itself. I highlighted the same flights in the same colors, and made sure to always double check the flight numbers with what was on the arrivals screen. At the end of day, all of the kids had been picked up and transported, even with the disaster that was the awful spreadsheet. After that experience of being on the receiving end of this terror, I always double and triple check anything I send out, especially if it contains pertinent data that impacts the whole team.

A successful training process is clear, through but not too heavy all at once, engaging, and also reassuring. This process is meant to train and prepare new hires for the role, so all the necessities should be explained clearly, and there should be no outlying questions by the end of the session.

I look towards creators like Monet McMichael, Olivia Cooke, Tiffany Lai, Jihoon Kim, Kali Uchis, and Charli XCX for inspiration. I also love to look back towards fashion icons like Bridget Bardot or Diane von Furstenberg for style inspo.