Day 155: Peer Leadership During Corona

Day 155: August 28, 2020
Global Cases: 24, 899, 595; Deaths: 840, 677
Egypt Cases: 98, 285; Deaths: 5, 362

Doha Wang
Multimedia Journalism Sophomore

I’ve had my mind set on being a Peer Leader since my first day of the First Year Program (FYP), and frankly there was no better time like the present to become one.

The Fall 2020 semester was the perfect opportunity to help guide overwhelmed Freshmen with their transition from high school, to a completely new and rare virtual university experience.

The Freshmen’s health and safety was FYP’s number one priority, that’s why they decided to implement a hybrid mode for their orientation in the same fashion as the upcoming academic semester.

This meant that two days would be held virtually through Zoom, but the Peer Leaders were asked to be on Campus during their meetings, and only one day would be on-ground.

Our job as Peer Leaders was to make sure our Freshmen don’t feel like they’re missing out on the experience of being face-to-face or on campus, so we planned all kinds of activities for them to engage in.

They were able to bond over games like Kahoot, spot the differences, guess the lyrics, Pictionary through the whiteboard on Zoom, and so much more.

A virtual campus tour was also recorded with the smallest details of our campus on video, and the students were walked through it bit by bit by a student ambassador.

The Peer Leaders were split into two groups to ensure the campus remained a low-density one. Group A carried out their online meetings on August 23 and 24, with their on-ground day scheduled for September 1.

Whereas group B’s online days took place on August 26 and 27, with their on-ground day being on September 2.

As Peer Leaders, we were faced with the tough challenge to complete our training through nothing but Zoom meetings.

Literally everything we did was through a screen device whether it being a training session, a meeting, a simulation of a platform or a presentation.

But after five months of being away, the moment finally came when I was able to step foot inside our beautiful campus.

For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.

It felt different though. The plaza was so empty, and we were all walking so far away from each other because of the social distancing. Security guards were walking around campus making sure we all had our face masks on when we left our classrooms; inside the classrooms we had to sit at a distance of two meters from each other.

Even though the process was not an easy one, the actual meeting days with the Freshmen made it all worthwhile.