What Should Be Included in a New Student Orientation?

In last week’s blog, I shared the purpose of having a sound orientation program. This week, I’d like to talk about what should be included in your orientation program. While it may seem like you are throwing everything you have at the students, there is some logic and structure to what you should be sharing during orientation.

Think about what students want to know and what they need to know to be successful in school. You must think of orientation as any class that you deliver. You should have learning objectives in place and create a lesson plan that covers all the required information.

Learning objectives might include the following:

• Explain the general objectives of the program of study
• Recognize needed lifestyle changes for a full-time student
• Demonstrate clocking in and out
• Describe the various rules and policies implemented by the school
• Know the completion, licensure, and placement rates of the school
• Discuss the importance of consumer safety and general safety procedures

There’s a lot to be covered during orientation.  It is the perfect time to review expectations of our students, policies, and procedures of the school, along with all the consumer information required by various accrediting and federal agencies.

Some typical topics to be covered in a new student orientation program are as follows:

• Staff and learner introductions
• An icebreaker or opening activity that will allow new students to bond with continuing learners
• An explanation of the importance of developing people skills as well as technical skills for career success
• An explanation of the importance of learner desire, personal commitment, and drive to succeed
• The job outlook for careers in program-related fields
• Program length and licensure requirements for the discipline
• Tips to learners for behavior modifications and time-management strategies to help with the weekly addition of 20 – 40 school hours to their existing schedule of responsibilities
• Obstacles learners may encounter to program completion and possible solutions
• The rules or standards of conduct required for students within the institution
• The various policies affecting learners
• OSHA regulations and basic requirements for a safe workplace
• Financial aid programs, if applicable

If your school is providing students with digital training solutions such as Milady’s MindTap, you want to take time during orientation to teach students how to access the school’s LMS and how to log in to all digital tools and get into their digital classroom. Have them set up their username and password. Demonstrate how to log in, access content, and navigate MindTap or the LMS.

One of the items mentioned above was reviewing the rules or standards of conduct of the school.  What does that include? Here is a list of possible policies and procedures you might want to review.

• Clocking procedures
• Attendance and tardy policy
• Cell phone policy
• Social media policy
• Smoking areas
• Lunch/breaks
• Student parking
• Lockers
• Kit policy
• Dress code
• Class schedule
• Standards of conduct
• Campus security, crime awareness, drug-free workplace policy
• Student grievance policy
• Leaves of absences
• Academic advising
• Course requirements
• Satisfactory progress requirements
• Reference materials
• Disciplinary procedures
• Privacy and file access
• Financial aid (if applicable)
• Who to see with questions regarding financial aid, licensure requirements, employment, continuing education, and reciprocity
• Basic requirements for a safe workplace
• Fire safety, including use of fire extinguishers and evacuation procedures
• Requirements for a safe workplace
• First aid

As you can see, this is quite a list!  It is an awful lot of information to throw at a new student who is enrolling because they are excited to cut hair, provide skin care, or work on nails!

There will be a lot of glazed over eyes if you simply attempt to “inform” students of all these policies.

My compliance-driven, rule-follower side looks at all of this information and says… “YES!  We must share all of this with students on or before the first day of school”.  The educator side of me looks at this and thinks… “Oh how BORING!  This is simply TMI (too much information)!”.

So which side wins out?  Well they both do. You see, we must deliver all this information. What changes is how we deliver this information.

To find out more about how we can liven up the delivery of this very important, yet very boring information, check out next week’s blog where we will dive into how to make all of this content a bit more engaging and useful for the student.