by Joann Kimberly Zerna & Lara Charmaine Lagorra
With printed handouts of booth lists open in their hands, freshmen moved through Nursing Lane during Genesis Week, often asking the same thing—where to next?
The question was not only about directions. It was also about entering a place so new that even a short walk could lead somewhere unexpected.
Students try to find their way by asking where a building is located, which direction leads to the SU Gymnasium, or whether they are still on the right path, each moment unfolding as part of learning the campus while moving through it.
Genesis Week, Silliman University’s (SU) annual welcome for freshmen, ran from June 8 to 11 under the theme “Biyaheng Sillimanian.” Held at Nursing Lane, it brought together 20 SU Student Government (SUSG) executive committees, 16 SU organizations, and 10 concessionaires to introduce students to campus life beyond the classroom.
From energetic recruitment spiels to conversations shared across tables and sign-up sheets, organizations in SU are among the first spaces where freshmen encountered the different communities existing within the university beyond the classroom.
Sometimes, the answer is a simple point toward a booth. Other times, a short walk across campus was followed before students went their separate ways.
Often, exchanges surfaced between programs as organizations actively reached out and introduced what they had to offer—encouraging freshmen to join their committee groups, each offering different roles and purposes within or outside the campus community.
Some freshmen were even dragged into games and interactive challenges, engaging in pop-ups while others were introduced to the opportunities, workshops, and upcoming events that each organization would offer should they choose to join.
SUSG President Zild “Zed” Jan Teves said Genesis Week is built around student interaction and organization-led booths that allow freshmen to encounter campus life beyond the classroom.
“Genesis Week is really about making the freshmen feel the Silliman community in a nutshell within that one-week-long event,” she said.
SUSG Vice-President Shelley Frienzylle Kate Jamera frames Genesis Week as a way of easing freshmen into campus life through its theme “Biyaheng Sillimanian, explaining that it is meant to shape the first days on campus into a gradual sense of belonging formed through experience rather than adjustment alone.
“[It is] to make them feel at home and one way to do it was to make them feel nostalgic in a way,” Kate said.
Still, much of Genesis Week takes shape as students move through booths, activities, and shared spaces, where interactions happen naturally between programs.
Some took wrong turns, retraced their steps, or arrived later than expected, pausing to ask for directions they were still trying to put into words. In these moments, Genesis Week quietly extends beyond its programs, showing how navigating a new environment is shaped by shared movement rather than individual effort.
The same faces resurface across different moments of the week, during registrations, in between program sessions, or while lining up for activities at booths and organization events.
For Mass Communication freshman Louie Ethan Andag, learning his way around campus became easier through the people around him.
“With the help of my dorm mates, kind fellow students, and newfound friends, I was able to find my way around campus well before Genesis Week even ended,” he says.
Even getting lost often leads to a brief exchange with another student who points the way before both continue on their separate routes.
Long after Genesis Week ends, these printed handouts are set aside and students begin to rely less on physical guides and more on what they have already encountered across campus.
And perhaps that is what Genesis Week teaches every incoming freshman that finding one’s way in Silliman is never about knowing the directions, but about the people—those who also felt the same uncertainty at their first college journey.
It is not only about movement, but about the connections formed the moment one first steps onto the path of college life. “Where to next?” slowly shifts from a question of direction to one of discovery and belonging.
And for every freshman alike, as they step into what it means to be a Sillimanian, a sense of belonging is formed—shaped by every turn, every encounter, and every shared step across campus.
