By Diana Zhu
DAVIS – The Transfer Fall Welcome: A Resource Fair for Transfer, Reentry and Student Parents, was held on Tuesday, Oct. 20 and gave students the opportunity to learn and ask questions one-on-one about the various campus resources available at UC Davis.
In complacency with the current COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held via a Zoom conference meeting with around 60 guests attending.
Using Zoom’s new feature to have multiple breakout rooms, organizations and resources were able to have their own rooms where students could drop in and visit.
Zoom’s newest update allows guests to go in and out of different breakout rooms at their own leisure.
There were around 33 campus resources that had their own rooms, with students dropping in to ask questions and with the hosts giving general information and answering questions.
Three of these rooms focused on the Activities and Recreation Center, the Study Abroad and Global 
Learning Hub and the Transfer and Reentry Center (TARC).
In the ARC’s break room, Annie Breger, manager for Recreation and Sports, was introducing activities offered, such as e-sports competitions, which will be offered in both team or solo choices, with the games Super Smash Bros., Rocket League, Call of Duty: Warzone and League of Legends.
Two physical activities offered will be a 5k and 10k fun run/walk, and remote activities include virtual Trivia Nights held Thursday and Friday evenings.
Breger said Recs and Sports are also looking to set up games such as Among Us and Monopoly through the application and digital distribution platform Discord.
Breger also mentioned they are planning to engage in different social media challenges, such as posting trick shots on social media and having students vote for which they like most.
Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic has halted several of activities, including hiring.
“However, come January, we’ll definitely be looking to hire lifeguards that are either already certified American Red Cross, or looking to become certified; as long as we go around these regulations and social distancing, which is possible – I have already run a course this summer,” Aquatics coordinator AJ Rooney said.
Sanne Fettinger, Administrative Coordinator of Campus Recreation Administration, jumped in to say, “To those who are still in Davis and in the area, campus rec is hiring right now – it would be at the ARC building. We are looking at applications right now and you can email member services for more information.”
A student asked about other campus recreation activities such as horse riding and sports.
Rooney answered that a lot of these services are still being offered like activities at the equestrian center, group outdoor exercises on campus and sports clubs, which are still recruiting.
One of the faults of the remote resource fair was upon entering an organization’s breakout room, someone else would be in the middle of answering a question or giving a presentation – making the new guests feel like they were arriving late.
In the Study Abroad and Global Learning Hub breakout room, a student asked how likely it would be to get one of their internships, even without much experience.
Study Abroad Program Coordinator and Advisor of the Global Learning Hub Global Affairs Karen Lark answered, guiding the student through some of the options available on their website, based on their major.
The website lists more opportunities virtually and it seems that most in-person internships are halted for now, but it’s never too early to start looking and preparing for the future.
Lastly, in the Transfer and Reentry Center’s breakout room, peer advisors Chloe Rice and Lily Sanchez spoke about their transfer experiences.
Rice is a senior and majoring in psychology while Sanchez is a junior majoring in history.
Rice explained the aim of the TARC is to create a welcoming space to empower all transfer and reentry students by providing holistic support for academic and social development.
Rice briefly spoke about how they have supported students with their advising, events, workshops and their community engagement activities, but with COVID-19 restrictions going on, the center is making its transfer over to the virtual world by hosting more virtual events such as Coffee with Chloe on the TARC YouTube channel, where students are able to drop by and just chat with Chloe.
One student expressed that these events were a lot to keep up with.
Sanchez spoke about how the TARC has been working on making the events more accessible, starting with updating their new Weekly Brief emails to include a Linktree, a social media reference landing page with links and resources right at users’ fingertips.
Rice and Sanchez also expressed the difficulty of keeping the friendly and welcoming atmosphere the TARC physical building had, as students were once able to drop by and simply chat.
The TARC has been looking into having a standing Zoom link where students can just drop by and chat about issues, or anything really, on their mind like they were able to at the old physical reception desk in the Dutton Hall building before COVID-19.
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