BSSC WONDER 2023 is an event held annually by BINUS Square Student Committee (BSSC). WONDER, which stands for Welcoming New Boarder, celebrates the welcoming of the new boarders that had just started their new journey in BINUS Square. Hence, our theme for this year is “A Whole New Journey”, in which the newcomers were given the opportunities to bond with their fellow boarders, learn more about BINUS Square activities, as well as explore its areas. This event was held in 2 batches, the first was on Saturday, 9th September 2023, and the second was on Sunday, 10th September 2023. A total of 216 new boarders participated in this event, 128 of them in the first batch and the other 88 of them in the second. Uniquely, the committees would be provided with adorable handcrafted headbands, each adorned with bunny ears on top of it, which was relevant to “Alice in Wonderland”, the inspiration of this event’s theme.

The event started at 9.15 in the morning for both batches. The participants were given time to re-register themselves and were given white T-shirts and merchandise. These participants were also assigned to several teams, in which they will play together during the games session. At 10.00 a.m., the event formally commenced with opening speeches by the Project Manager of BSSC WONDER 2023, Anastasia Putri Hartanti, Chairman of BSSC 13th Presidency, Kezia Santoso, and Manager of Program Development Center (PDC), Yuliana Sari Arianna. Subsequently, there were presentations highlighting the various organizations and activities in BINUS Square, such as BSSC and Senior Committee BSSC, Floor Coordinator (FC), and Academic Ambassador (AA).

After the presentations were over, team leaders were called to guide their teams to develop chemistry amongst the team members and to create a chant that would be used during the games session. Following that, there was lunch break, during which all of the participants and committees had their appetizing lunch. Once all the participants had finished their lunch, each team would be guided by their respective team leaders to their assigned post, where they would join the games session. For this event, there were five games that were competed, those being Toss the Mad Hat, Paint the White Roses, Insane Memory Card, Tea-Time Trivia, and Blind Volleyball. Every team had to participate in all of those games, and for every victory, the winning team was given a certain amount of points that would be accumulated at the end of the event. All of the teams will be ranked based on the points they received during the games session, and the top 3 teams will be rewarded.

In the first batch, Haha Team had amazingly clinched their champion, while the first and second runner-ups were finally secured by Aikatsu Team and BMW Team respectively. As for the second batch, Falcon Team had emerged victorious, followed by Entok Team and Virtuoso Team which took the first and second runner-ups respectively. Additionally, in the second batch, Virgoun Team was also honorably awarded as the fourth placed team.

At the end of every batch, a special memory session took place. Every participant got to paint and write messages to their friends’ white T-shirts given earlier as merchandise. This serves as a reminder to the great memory they created together with their new friends on this event. Finally, the event concluded with a memorable group photo session, including all of the participants, volunteers, and committees of BSSC WONDER 2023.

To wrap up this event, we had also conducted interviews and gathered feedback from randomly selected participants. In conclusion, a lot of the participants were at first reluctant to join this event, but many of them were glad that they eventually decided to participate in this event. Plenty of the new boarders managed to make new friends, with some even becoming close friends ever since then. Many of the participants were initially rather shy and reserved. Nevertheless, during the games session, numerous participants became more comfortable interacting and bonding with each other and developing new friendships between each team member.