To SPIN or not to SPIN

Meet Troi Benjamin, a Human Resource Education major, Leadership and Development concentration, Business Administration minor, from New Orleans, Louisiana. Involved in LSU Ambassadors, currently an Associate chair for the Orientation committee, student worker for the Office of Orientation.

Spring Invitational: An orientation for outstanding students who are invited to participate in this prestigious event. Spring Invitations’ staff is dedicated to the students to ensure an exceptional time and aiding in recruiting the future tigers. There are added benefits to coming to Spring Invitational besides having a summer to yourself. Students who attend Spring Invitational have the opportunity of receiving college credit before attending college, scheduling classes with first priority, and enjoying the extraordinary company of other high achieving students.

During Spring Invitational, there are many resources for the exceptional students to hear about in addition to seeing their college advisors more than once to guide them on the journey to scheduling classes. Every student is broken into groups based on a random selection within their senior college, this allows for students to meet potential classmates and/or friends.

I did not get the opportunity to be an attendee of Spring Invitational, but has not been a barrier to my passion of Orientation. I have served many different roles for Spring Invitational over the past 3 years of being an LSU Ambassador. I began as an Orientation Leader in 2013, moved into being a College Leader in 2014, and I currently hold one of the Associate Chair positions, while working for the Office of Orientation.

Associate Chair Role: Working as one of the associate chairs for Spring Invitational allowed me to see the program from another angle. There are more aspects to Spring Invitational than just being an Orientation Leader and serving the students directly. As one of the Associate chairs, I was aided in assigning all volunteers who worked Spring Invitational. This position allowed me to understand how if one piece of the puzzle is missing, you do not have to panic but adjust your puzzle.

Student Assistant Role: I originally believed that there wasn’t much student interaction done between the student assistants and the students attending Spring Invitational, but oh was I wrong! As a student worker every day of Spring Invitational we are set up in the Orientation Headquarters to answer any and every questions asked by a future tiger or parent. We as the Office of Orientation are here for the assisting of every individual at Orientation.

My word of advice to all students who get invited to Spring Invitational would be to dive in to SPIN and allow the potential memories to take over and fall in love with being an LSU Tiger who will bleed Purple and Gold 24/7!