Every summer, the Cyclone Aides help engage first year students and introduce them to Iowa State. 

Jordan Edejer, a senior in environmental science, said he became a Cyclone Aide because he was a Destination Iowa State (DIS) team leader and was sent a recommendation by his residential assistant. According to Edejer, Cyclone Aides work two main events which include orientation and DIS.

“There were some smaller ones that we would attend, such as in the past semester here, we’ve been attending some of the career fairs here on campus, promoting the Iowa the destination Iowa State position,” Edejer said. “And during the spring, we also helped in promoting the destination Iowa State team leadership too.”

Izzy Emmert, a sophomore in criminal justice, said orientation included 4,000 students and upwards 6,000 when including family members.

“Our duties were really to engage the students into coming into Iowa State, and helping them pick their classes, showing them around and inviting them to join clubs and do the different activities,” Emmert said.

Emmert said the interview process is two rounds, one online and one in person. Following that, the Aides take a class in the spring semester.

“We ended up just learning kind of all about Iowa State and how we can portray that onto these students over the summer,” Emmert said.

Brittany Huston, a sophomore in journalism and mass communications, said the Aides are split up into committees and then smaller subcommittees where they get to plan events.

“Mine was clone quest, so I was in charge [of] the scavenger hunt and stuff that students had to do,” Huston said. 

Furthermore, Huston said she was involved in a lot of leadership roles in high school so she wanted to get involved in something similar. 

“I like how many new people I got to meet through it,” Huston said. “There’s like 50 built-in friends.”

According to Huston, Cyclone Aides get a pay rate of $14 an hour, free housing over the summer and a $900 meal plan. She also mentioned that she was shy before the role and now she is able to talk to people a lot easier.

“The networking is really helpful,” Huston said.  “I mean, you’re working with a bunch of different people from a bunch of different backgrounds, so it’s kind of helped me find careers that I might find interesting, like, I got an ambassador job in my journalism school because I was a Cyclone Aide. So it’s just a lot of, like, the leadership skills and communication that comes out of it.”

Edejer said the main thing he enjoys about being a Cyclone Aid is the sense of community.

“For an entire year, 30 to 40 of us were constantly interacting with each other,” Edejer said. “We were constantly interacting with each other. We were always just hanging out with each other.”

Edejer said you can only be a Cyclone Aide for a year but you can be an advisor.

Emmert said she really enjoyed staying in Ames over the summer as an out-of-state student.

“It was honestly really nice just staying in Ames and seeing the two different perspectives of quiet and then busy during the school year,” Emmert said.

Both Emmert and Edejer said they gained leadership skills from this role and Huston said she gained communication skills.

Edejer said before this position, he had little confidence in his understanding of Iowa State and now he has gained confidence in it. Similarly, he mentions the leadership skills he has gained from this position.

“These leadership skills of holding a room or holding a small group of people and keeping them engaged, that’s an amazing skill to have in the workforce, which you can’t really do unless you have experience,” Edejer said.

Appreciatively, Emmert mentioned that the job was fun and didn’t feel like work.

“It didn’t feel like a job, it just felt like fun,” Emmert said.