After spending 1st semester abroad, Discovery students look to transition back to campus

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While most Syracuse University freshmen are welcomed by Crouse College or the Hall of Languages on their first day of classes, freshman Sarah Schreiber was greeted by the sights and culture of Florence, Italy.

Through the Syracuse University Discovery program, Schreiber got the chance to spend her first semester in Europe and experience life outside of the United States. But this made her transition to campus life in the spring semester difficult, she said.

“You rely on each other a lot — your fellow freshmen and people you met abroad,” Schreiber said. “The support is there, but it’s not always from the university. It’s from the community.”

The Discovery program allows incoming freshmen to spend their first semester at SU on a satellite campus in Florence, Madrid or Strasbourg. The SU Abroad team has instituted a new mentor program this semester to facilitate freshmen integration into campus life, but the program has been more effective for some students than others, freshman Olivia Fried said.

Samantha Shaffner, the lead academic and professional advisor for the College of Arts and Sciences, works as the liaison between the advising office and SU Abroad for Discovery students. Students who went abroad for their first semester in 2021 said they hoped for more connection with other students already on campus, so she established the mentorship program.

“The program is in its infancy,” Shaffner said. “It’s definitely something that I’m planning on growing.”

Shaffner thinks the program has been effective this year in making initial connections, but she plans to get feedback from students about the impact it has had. Shaffner plans to grow the program and hold more events later this semester so students feel fully supported in their transition.

As a Discovery student, there are complications that traditional students don’t have to deal with, Schreiber said. She explained that many introductory level classes are not offered in the spring semester, which causes a lot of stress about graduating on time.

Fried said the mentor program is a good idea in theory, but she wishes it had done more this semester. The mentors themselves were great, she said, but Fried wished that the program had been furthered past the very beginning of the spring semester. Besides reaching out during the first week back, she wanted mentors to continue following up throughout the year to ensure that students are well integrated into the school.

Although it may be difficult to tell how students are doing, Fried said she would love for Discovery students to be able to build real relationships with their mentors.

The transition was made more difficult by few events and programs being catered to freshmen starting at SU in the spring. Although they were told there would be a fair when they returned to campus, the fair happened four weeks into the semester.

Schreiber said that she wrote her name down for several clubs at the Involvement Fair, but overall the event was disappointing. The school’s activities have not been as helpful as they could have been, so she has relied on Discovery peers and mentors as resources, she said.

Schreiber took a gap year before coming to SU, unsure if she wanted to participate in the program. She was worried about integrating herself into campus after returning to the U.S., so she took time to consider her options.

She received an email in December from her mentor, Virginia Walker, and Schreiber immediately felt that she and Walker had a lot in common. She said that any time she has needed help, she’s been able to ask Walker for advice.

“I was so, so excited to meet her,” Schreiber said. “I read (Virginia’s email) to my parents, because … she’s like the same person as me.”

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Walker, now a sophomore, participated in the Strasbourg Discovery program, and now mentors multiple freshmen. She said if you aren’t an outgoing person, the transition back to campus can be very difficult.

There weren’t any other students who did the Discovery program in Walker’s dorm, so she got involved on campus through sorority recruitment and joining clubs. She decided to become a mentor for the program this year to use her experience to help other Discovery students acclimate.

With the help of a mentor, Walker wants to help students feel like they have someone on their side as they learn to navigate campus for the first time. She introduced herself to her mentees via email in December and gave them a tour of campus and helped them set up their dorms.

Adam Baltaxe, a sophomore who participated in the Discovery program in Madrid last year, said his return to campus was a tough experience. He said having older friends helped him a lot with his transition, so a mentorship program could be a good way for the school to facilitate those connections.

“I think (SU) needs to be more accommodating for transfer and Discovery students,” Baltaxe said. “There’s hundreds of new students coming in every semester, not just in the fall.”

Senior Wynter Chaverst didn’t originally plan on attending SU, but she changed her mind in 2019 when she was admitted to the Discovery program in Strasbourg. Being able to study abroad during college was important to her, and she knew this was a valuable opportunity.

Studying abroad her first semester in college taught Chaverst to be intercultural with the way that she interacts with others, as she had to adapt to a new culture. The U.S. is different from many places in the world, she said, and living away from home taught her to recognize those differences.

“I recommended studying abroad to everyone,” Chaverst said. “I loved every single moment of it.”

However, Chaverst was sent home due to pandemic closures several weeks after she returned from France. She wasn’t close with the members of her Discovery group, so she felt very isolated.

A mentorship program with someone her age who had been through that process would have been very helpful, Chaverst said. She didn’t know anyone besides the group that she was with abroad — she bonded with the Discovery students well, but struggled to meet people through other methods.

Fried said she underestimated the difficulty of returning to campus. She thought it would be similar in many respects to starting in the fall, but it was harder than she expected.

“There’s a really big learning curve, and really a lot that goes into that first semester, because everyone’s rushing right to the fences, trying to get stuff done, trying to meet new people,” Fried said. “You’re really behind, even though you had such an experience that first semester.”

Now, Schreiber wants to pay it forward and become a Discovery program mentor next year. She felt that having a mentor as a resource was invaluable, so she wants to help create that experience for other students. She has made a list of things she wants to tell Discovery program students next year when she returns as a mentor.

“(The mentor program) is important because it is an incredibly unique experience to go abroad the first semester,” Fried said. “Having someone who had that experience and who’s succeeded in acclimating back to Syracuse is a really important connection.”