Orientation Apps: Make Your School Orientation Even Better!
Orientation Apps Help New Students
Mobile apps are great for academic events like orientations and welcome weeks. Visiting students will be in a new and unfamiliar surrounding, so having important information – i.e. maps, schedules, and directories – all in one place will help them make the most of their orientation experience. You can also include helpful information such as checklists of freshmen activities, campus POIs (points of interest), and local dining options and attractions.
With fall just around the corner, now is the perfect time to start thinking about orientation apps for welcome week, parents’ weekend, registration and more.
Indiana State University
The Indiana State University Orientation guide is a great example of an orientation app designed with students in mind. It’s well-organized and includes information that will be helpful to visiting students.
Students can use the maps feature to search for campus buildings and locations. Clicking on the desired search result gives them a brief description of the location and shows them where it is on a map (marked with a pin).
Freshmen Checklists are a great addition to any orientation app. ISU’s Freshman Checklist includes helpful information regarding placement exams, applying for financial aid, signing up for housing, and what to bring to orientation.
Many visiting students will be coming from out-of-town, so including a section that lets students and parents know where to go and what to eat is a smart idea. ISU’s “Area Information” section lists several local hotels, restaurants, bookstores, shopping centers, and museums.
Oklahoma State University
The OSU Welcome Week Guide is another innovative guide that uses Guidebook to feature the highlights of their program.
OSU makes their Welcome Week guide their own by customizing icons with their logo and mascot Pistol Pete. The banner at the bottom can be sold to sponsors. To learn more about banner sponsorships, see our last post.
Schedules are versatile and can be organized in a variety of different ways (i.e. by tracks, by day, etc.). Students have the option to add a session or event to “My Schedule,” and to provide feedback by liking or disliking it.
Dedicated Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are good ways to generate more publicity for your school’s orientation. They are also great avenues for new students to interact with each other.
Both the ISU and OSU guides exemplify the things you can do with a mobile orientation app. Hopefully, this helps you with planning your next orientation or welcome week guide!
