How to keep distance during the OWee? ‘A job for the mentors’

While the mercury rose to 33 degrees on campus, about 70 OWee mentors trickled into the equally tropical aula one by one. The one shuffling a little nervously, the other with a confident step. But all with pleasure on their faces. Over the next one and a half hours, they will hear what their mentorship will be like this year. While the eyes of the Cabinet are firmly on the introduction weeks in student cities, the mentors have an additional task: they have to make sure that the one-and-a-half metre rule is maintained during the physical introduction events.

After a word of welcome by OWee Board Member Melanie de Reus and a speech by Vice Rector Magnificus Rob Mudde, communications managers Feline and Julian take the stage. Their job is to explain the dos and don’ts of the OWee programme.

Breaking the ice online
For three days the mentor groups will first meet up on the OWee’s online platform. They will get to know each other at lunches and while wandering around the associations. At the same time, the first years can join the set programme parts such as the association forum and the College Tour, and they can do the treasure hunt through the city. And they will do this at their laptops. The first few hours of the OWee in particular will be even more demanding for the mentors, say Julian and Feline. “Create an app group beforehand, do an introductory round and try to stimulate conversation.” It’s harder, after all, to break the ice online than in person.

Will this make mentoring more complicated? ‘Mentor mama’ and applied mathematics student Annerieke (20) has not yet made up her mind. She is coaching a group for the first time this year. “I think you have to take on a more supervisory role than in previous years, but maybe it depends on the group. We’ll see.”

^{Annerieke (right) enrolled as a mentor after a call from fellow mentor Lucy (left). (Photo: Delta)}

The physical programme starts the week after the online OWee. Each mentor group will spend one day in Delft, following its own timetable. The idea behind having timetables is that it will avoid too many mentor groups in one place at one time, and it will be easier to maintain the one-and-a-half metre rule. “The timetables are the one thing that make a physical OWee possible at all. So it is of paramount importance that you stick to it,” explains Julian.

Questions about maintaining distance
OWee participants will not only have to keep distance from other groups, but also adhere to the one-and-a-half metre rule within their groups. It will be the task of the mentors to make sure that this happens. “Be strict,” emphasises Feline, “do your best to insist on the one-and-a-half metre rule.”

During the question round, hands are raised. “Keeping the one-and-a-half metre rule while moving from one place to the other is virtually impossible,” notes one of the mentors. “Do you have any tips for maintaining the one-and-a-half metre distance?” asks another.

Julian and Feline point to the timetables to which all the groups have to stick. “It is tricky. We know it’s hard, but the planning has been put together to have relatively small numbers of people in relatively large areas so that it should be possible to keep distance.”

Despite the extra corona precautions, mentor Annerieke is very much looking forward to the OWee. “I met almost all my friends at the OWee and I hope this will be the same for my ‘mentor kids’.”