Michigan Tech University holds Orientation Week to welcome new students

HOUGHTON, Mich. (WLUC) – It’s orientation week at Michigan Tech University (MTU) for one of the largest incoming class sizes the university has seen in decades.

This year’s orientation theme is Track 2 Success, reflecting MTU’s goal of helping students find their own way.

The week is packed with a variety of activities for students, including Friday’s favorite A Taste of Tech Traditions.

“We’re going to have a dunk tank out there, and bouncy houses and slip-n-slide broomball,” said 2022 Orientation Training Coordinator Victoria Ghazal. “There’s an opportunity to see a bunch of different events that we do throughout the whole school year kind of abridged into one day, where they can kind of get a taste for everything that Tech has to offer.”

As of today, about 1400 new students have arrived on campus, with the total expected to be closer to 1600 by the end of the week.

“We are about 200 or more over last year,” said Orientation and Transition Programs Assistant Director Dawn Corwin. “So this is the second largest class coming in since the early 80′s.”

While enrollment is up, orientation staff are prepared to handle them.

“We’ve been able to find them all groups and people to be with and people to learn from,” continued Ghazal. “We have our groups set up by majors, so we’re able to put all our chemical engineers together and all our computer science majors together, and it’s really exciting to just have a big class coming in this year.”

And with COVID-19 restrictions easing, students can look forward to more opportunities.

“Because COVID numbers have been going down,” added Ghazal. “We’ve been able to open up a lot more stuff on campus and bring back some events we did in the past. Just a lot more opportunities to hang out with people on campus and not be worried about different restrictions.”

Orientation week will be followed by the university’s Welcome Week, which will include even more events.

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