If you are an individual planning on applying to Ryerson University's Fashion Program or have already applied, I'm going to make your life a little bit easier by giving you the gist of what to expect on orientation day. In October of 2015 I applied to the Fashion Communications program at Ryerson and sent my 3 piece portfolio in by January. It was pretty nerve-wrecking and stressful, not gonna lie, but the feeling of getting your acceptance email is probably the best you're gonna feel in a while.
So let's flash forward to September; its Orientation Day!
The night before orientation day was a restless one-I was extremely nervous about meeting my professors and fellow peers since I had absolutely no idea what to expect. But, fear not. Orientation day was not bad at all, the nervous jitters left me just as I had entered the room and had a glance at all the other nervous fashion students around me. Meeting and talking to other students before the program started in the orientation room was a life saver since you realize that you aren't alone; we were all sitting in our seats waiting for the dean to start his speech in anticipation.
This is how the program panned out:
1. The dean of FCAD gave a really nice speech congratulating us on being accepted into this program since it is not easy to get into, and one by one all the professors who were teaching that semester introduced themselves and a little bit about their respective classes.
2. The Fashion Union which consists of upper years gave a short presentation about themselves as well as a little intro on what to expect for first year. Not gonna lie, they totally freaked me out when they said that this year would be seriously challenging and consist of a lot of tears-but trust me, it gets better in the end. After they were done they gave us our assigned lockers and grouped us to compete in a fun mini competition between one another to sort of break the ice and do something.
In our group we were given a certain amount of fabric, tape, scissors, and a stapler and in a certain amount of time (I don't remember how long they gave us but I think it was an hour), we were to create a garment, have someone in the group wear it, and photograph it. Then post the photo on the instagram page to see whose was the best. It was fun to get thrown into something like that and have more of an interaction with one another, I was definitely feeling more confident for the first week of classes.