The 2025 Freshman Orientation Lecture
The department of Language and Literacy Education in the National Taichung University of Education held a freshman orientation and a special lecture titled ‘’ Stepping out of the Beginner’s Village --- Paving the Way for a Radiant Life.’’ On September 2nd. It aimed to help the freshmen facing new lives, interpersonal communication and emotional stress to embrace a new environment and social challenges. Tzu-Yu Chien, a counseling psychologist, was invited as the speaker to guide the students in adjusting their self-expectations and learning how to build mature relationships and psychological resilience.
Chien indicated that studying in the university is a crucial period for you to rediscover yourself and explore your values. Stepping into a new phase of life, how to live, talk, and have a romantic relationship like a grown up? Many people tend to evaluate their own values by others’ opinions, but they don’t know that inferiority complex can be transformed into motivation for growth. This lecture let the students learn personal boundaries and challenges in life such as the distance between friendship and love, depth of communication, and emotional tolerance.
Pi-Hsiang Chou, the Chair of the department, said that she hopes the students can settle into their college lives as soon as possible by this lecture. Also, they will know how to get along with both themselves and others, embracing new challenges during their college.
In the lecture, Chien designed a lot of hands-on activities, including writing their own hashtags and practicing having deep conversations by using the other person’s language. She emphasized that it's more important to discuss things in depth than in breadth. She also introduced the concepts of reading a person’s emotional atmosphere and the window of tolerance, helping the students understand how to clear up misunderstandings in the communications to protect themselves and respect others.
In the end of the lecture, Chien encouraged students to interact with different people by using different communication strategies, and learn to be open-minded when friends come and go. She reminded that it doesn’t mean who is wrong, just not suitable. By categorizing friends by their level of closeness, and designing different communication strategies for different people, students can go further in interpersonal interactions.
