For 40 years, the University of Toronto Mississauga Students Union (UTMSU) has hosted the largest, most exciting event of the school year – Orientation!
Orientation is an exclusive event for incoming first-year students to get acquainted with campus, make friends, and, most importantly, have fun! Every year, the Orientation team develops a creative theme: in 2019, the UTMSU rode the Raptors NBA championship with Kingdom’19, featuring the clash of prehistoric beasts. In 2020, the UTMSU experienced a different year than ever before with the pandemic, however that did not hold the UTMSU back from hosting a successful, fully virtual Orientation with the theme Cosmos ’20! Orientation continued in 2021 with hybrid programming to ensure students would have a smooth transition into in-person programming while considering students’ safety. The theme for 2021 Orientation was Cyber ’21. Orientation 2023 was fully in person for the first time since the start of the pandemic, with the theme of Venture ’23, exploring the daring undertaking of first year and university life
This year’s Orientation theme invites you to celebrate your legacies, and embrace each other’s backgrounds, bringing together countless aspects of cultures, traditions, and perspectives. The theme combines the concept of a traditional hero’s journey with the experience of being a first year! This year’s Orientation is highly anticipated as we emerge from the years of online interactions and shift back full swing into in-person events. We wish to create a comfortable and safe transition into your academic career, while ensuring you have plenty of fun through Orientation Week!
There are many reasons to attend orientation, including but not limited to, meeting new people, making new friends, becoming acquainted with campus, learning of resources and services! It is also a great opportunity to learn of campus groups, resources, and different opportunities. Our jam packed schedule includes many fun and engaging activities, facilitating a safe environment for you to bond with upper year mentors. Lastly, you’ll be creating long lasting memories. Orientation will be a week you don’t want to miss!
We can’t wait to introduce you to the UTMSU and to share all the amazing and important events, services, and campaigns we have planned for the upcoming year.
If you’re a first-year reading this and don’t know who the UTMSU is, no problem! We’ll briefly explain.
The UTMSU is a ‘for the students, by the students’ non-profit organization that represents over 16,000 students across the University of Toronto Mississauga. We strive to provide cost-saving services, programs and events, and represent the voices of undergraduate, part-time and MAM students across the University and to all levels of government.
The UTMSU provides services such as affordable transit through the U-PASS program, healthcare through our health and dental plan, Food Centre, Duck Stop, Tax-Clinic, discounted tickets and much more. The UTMSU represents the social, economic and political interests of students through several campaigns, such as Fairness for International Students, Education for All, United for Equity, The ME in Mental Health, Know Your Academics, Consent Is Mandatory and No Means No. The UTMSU also holds many events throughout the year such as Multicultural Week, Expression Against Oppression, Black History Month and our biggest event of the year, Orientation. These are only some of the things that your Students’ Union does for you! For more information or if you want to get involved, feel free to follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @myUTMSU or @utmsuorientation
Or visit our website utmsu.ca. For any inquiries don’t hesitate to contact us at oc@utmsu.ca.
We can’t wait to see you at Orientation and once again, welcome to UTM!
Orientation Team