Golden Eagle Welcome Week (GEWW) serves as an official introduction and welcome week for first-year students to the Southern Miss campus.

GEWW gives students a chance to meet new people, familiarize themselves with the campus and interact with both freshman and upperclassmen students.

“I loved GEWW so much. It was so much fun,” Dominique Moore, business administration major, said. “It was really helpful with getting to know and meet people. That was the best part. I love the spirit. It’s just awesome. I also really liked my GEWW leaders.”

One of the most time-honored traditions of GEWW is the painting of the Eagle Walk by students.

“It was a lot of fun,” Jordan Maxwell, chemistry major, said. “My favorite part was definitely painting the Eagle Walk. We were running out of time on some of the things, and we didn’t get to go to all the panels.”

For some students, what GEWW group they’re placed in can either make or break their experience.

“I liked my group,” Leonard Welch, accounting major, said. “They welcomed me with open arms and made me see how friendly it is here, compared to where I come from. I loved the talent show. There’s a lot of talented people here, and I like that they recognized that.”

Not all students had a great experience with their group, though.

“My only negative situation with GEWW is that my leader had an attitude, because my group didn’t ask a lot of questions,” Zyhkiria Howell, broadcasting journalism major, said. “Other than that, I had a good time.”

When asked about their GEWW experience, some students found that participating in GEWW events could be exhausting, mentally and physically.

“I’m a homebody,” Marissa Theodore, foreign language licensure major, said. “I don’t like big crowds, so I tried to at least attend half the day. It was good for some parts. I didn’t really like the walking. I feel like they spaced their events out on purpose. I’m not very fit, so walking was not my strong point. I didn’t wear comfortable clothes the first day, so I was dying, but the rest of it was good.”

A positive benefit of GEWW was that it gave some students the chance to explore the campus atmosphere before the start of classes.

“GEWW gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of new people here,” Leonard Welch, accounting major, said. “It gave me the opportunity to tour this campus. It also gave me an outlook on how college would be.

“GEWW helped me know where everything was at, because all of the meetings were in the halls that my classes were in,” Howell said.

Overall though, many students felt GEWW was an enjoyable experience.

“It was a really great experience and I really liked how you could see the history of Southern Miss,” Taylor Boykin, speech-language pathology major, said. “It made you feel very at home. I’m from Mobile, so I didn’t really think I was going to fit in with everybody. But you can really see how everyone has their own little personality and they can all mash in to make one big family.”