In the Moment: Improv Group Teaches New Orfalea Students Communication Skills Before Classes Begin

Forget those warnings you heard as a child — Brad Robertson says you should talk to strangers.

“There’s lots of research about why talking to strangers is a good thing,” said Robertson, a partner with On Your Feet, a Portland-based collective that applies what it calls the Improv Mindset to some of the challenges organizations face.

While On Your Feet typically works with corporations like Nike, Google and Intel to help employees communicate effectively, it has also offered presentations to Orfalea College of Business students during the Week of Welcome, helping newly arriving students work through the fear and anxiety of being in a new place, surrounded by new people.

Several hundred students, including new freshmen and transfer students, participated in the WOW Week activity.

“The session helps our students get comfortable with one another using improv techniques,” said Amy Carter, assistant dean for student success. “It gets them laughing, participating, engaging — actively doing something.”

Improvisational, or improv, comedy, is a form of live theater in which everything in the performance is made up on the spot. No scripts — just in the moment.

While celebrities like Steve Carell, Amy Poehler and Robin Williams mastered improv as an art form, the On Your Feet crew realized that improv skills can be useful beyond the stage. So they share their ACE model — acknowledge, connect and explore — to help people connect, whether it be in an office or a college campus.

Brad Robertson, left, and Shelley Darvy, from On Your Feet, address new Orfalea College of Business students.

“Our mission is more joy, less fear, better results,” Robertson said.

After hundreds of freshmen and transfer business students gathered at the Cal Poly Recreation Center during the Week of Welcome, Robertson and associate partner Shelley Darcy offered several ice breakers that helped the crowd interact. Students were prompted to discuss photos from their phones, unexplained things they’ve experienced, like UFO sightings, and the story of their name.

“The story behind our names is that we’re twins, and I came out first, and my name is Bryan,” said Bryan Hasegawa, standing next to his brother, both juniors from Saratoga, California, after the presentation. “They didn’t know what to name the second one, so his name is Ryan.”

“Yeah, so we just … rhymed,” added Ryan Hasegawa, who, like his brother, is a transfer accounting student from DeAnza College.

Dean Damon Fleming participated in an improv exercise.

The On Your Feet techniques seemed to work. Several students who met during the session continued to talk to their new classmates afterward, forming bonds even before classes began.

“I feel like you can find a bunch of ways to relate to people with improv,” said Enrique Benitez, a business administration freshman from Bakersfield, California, who mingled with the Hasegawa twins. “It can help you with conversation starters.”

And those who feel anxiety or fear about interacting with new people?

No biggie.

“Today I learned that because everyone’s new and everyone’s going through the same new experience, it’s fine to take the first step forward, and even if there are mistakes, everyone is making mistakes, and it’s not a big deal,” said business administration student Kathleen Nguyen, a freshman from Santa Clara, California “I think the improv was a really good lesson because there’s a lot of things that we won’t be prepared for that we won’t know ahead of time, and improv will help us be ready to come up with stuff on the spot and adapt.”

Improv skills can help student learn important communication skills, according to the partners at On Your Feet, based in Portland.

Carter, who has seen multiple On Your Feet presentations at Cal Poly, said it’s fun to see the students laugh, talk and share when they first arrive on campus – not the typical orientation that might include a PowerPoint presentation to 900 students.

“This is their first college experience,” she said. “We wanted to make it fun and exciting, and On Your Feet brings that energy, something these students will remember and hopefully apply to their first quarter in the Orfalea College of Business.”

To further assist new students, Carter added, they learn about community building and adapting to uncertainty in the college’s BUS 100 Orientation and College Success course, where students are challenged to develop a graduation- and college-goal setting plan based on their interests.

“These programs provide students with an early opportunity to think holistically about their college experience and how to make the most of it,” she said.