#WelcomeToStanford

[MUSIC]. I remember when I was a freshman coming to Stanford. I, was pretty jittery. I was really nervous. And I was just thinking, wow, I do not know anybody out here. And that can be pretty intimidating. >> Stanford was just like the great unknown. No one in my family had gone to college so there was no preparing for a college speech, what it meant to live in a room with a stranger you don’t know. I was scared about whether or not I’d fit in, or whether my personality, my temperaments or the things I like to do would be the Stanford norm or would have a place at Stanford.

00:47 - >> I think the new student orientation is about beginnings, discovering self, discovering others, discovering who you want to be in this next phase of your life. >> New student orientation begins the year here at Stanford. And so it’s when all of the new students move in on the same day, and they go through a series of activities together that bond them as a class. >> NSO’s important because I met my upperclassmen mentors who really shaped my Stanford trajectory. And they really made sure I felt at home and comfortable my first week at Stanford.

01:17 - >> When you come into Stanford you meet a lot of people. So you might meet someone your first day and they might be become your best friend for all four years. >> When, a great part about new student orientation, everyone arriving as everyone’s getting settled in their dorms, there’s this real sense of dorm life and dorm pride. >> At our foundation we are about relationship, faculty member to student in a research project or even relationship in the collective. In a whole dorm community, in an athletic team all of that to say we’re not about competing at the expense of one another but instead raising each other up.

01:51 - >> This was a place that I found I could really count on everyone else around me to like, have my back. And so when you start talking to other people you really realize, oh man, like, everyone else is feeling just the same as I and you just kind of move past the initial nervousness and you really build a community and a home off of that. >> Welcome, students, we are so glad you’re here. >> You are joining a family. When we say family, we mean a family. >> I want to encourage you to embrace this place and embrace it’s perfection and imperfection. To think about where you want to leave your fingerprints and what kind of legacies you want to leave but also get your sense that this is your big, beautiful place. This is your home. [MUSIC] .