Orientation blues
Why I chose to spend my last days of summer at home
MELISSA HIEBERT STAFF
Ahh, I remember when I first attended U1 orientation a few years back. Not knowing exactly what to expect from university, I keenly grabbed my neon green and purple orientation booklet, my package of information that directed me where to find my “orientation homeroom,” and I was out the door, heading off to the university a full two days before classes actually commenced.
Now, teachers always told me that university would be a muchneeded change from high school; that university is a place where you would be treated like an adult. However, when the classroom leaders handed out skittles and told us that for every blue skittle we received we had to tell some kind of interesting fact about ourselves to the rest of the class, I was less than impressed.
After an hour of being lectured on doing homework and attending classes (a message that had already been beaten into me by most every high school teacher I ever had), we ventured outside for a grand tour of the campus. I think that mindlessly walking around campus whilst following some senior student waving a huge U1 flag was the last straw; I decided right then and there that orientation was useless and I refused to waste the precious last days of summer on something this lame.
Of course, it could have been due to the fact that I was way too utterly cool to bother with orientation. It just seemed like a chance for all of the new students to parade around in their shiny new school clothes anyway.
Okay, perhaps I was a little harsh on the whole notion of orientation. It just seemed a tad patronizing to simultaneously tell new students that there will be no one around at university to babysit them, all the while doing just that. I mean, I suppose it’s useful to people who just wandered into university, not knowing Tier building from a hole in the ground, and thinking they can get away with the amount of work they put in to get a C in high school and be all right. Also, I think they had a lot of other cool stuff to do, including beer bashes, free pancakes, random prizes and musical acts.
However, I think all of the glitz and glamour of U1 orientation just adds to my contempt for it. It simply doesn’t paint an accurate picture of university life. Students are left with the impression that university is all fun and games, the point of which is to attend as many beer bashes as possible in one week. Sure they tell you that university is hard work, but then they bombard you with a week’s worth of alcohol and partying and urge you to attend as much of it as possible. It’s enough to leave at least a few poor, misguided university students with the wrong impression, as they skip out on their first classes to listen to bands and drink.
Perhaps I am just bitter towards orientation because I completely missed out on a part of the traditional university initiation process. Maybe I’ll relive my misspent youth and missed opportunity and attend orientation this year, this time around taking advantage of the free clipboards and pancakes.
