Orientation Week: A Breakdown
Hey everyone! Orientation week has been going AWESOME so far! Here’s a run-down of how a freshman’s schedule is for the first few days just starting on campus so you can see what I mean.
Day 1: My mom and I arrived on campus for orientation on Tuesday at 9 in the morning to check in. The lines for each station were long but the time passed pretty quickly with the orientation team going around answering questions and passing out some free stuff. As my mom and I pulled into my residence hall area, fraternities were all around taking everyone’s bags right to their rooms. I met my lovely RA’s to ask some questions and go through some forms. At night, “Color Wars” started. All new students are grouped into different colored teams with upperclassmen to compete in a bunch of physical challenges.
Day 2: First day on my own! By this time I met all my roommates and we’re starting to get along and figure out our different schedules. I took a math placement exam in the morning, then went to whichever sessions I wanted to learn about some of the different services on campus. At night in the Clemente Center, Dale K, a comedy hypnotist, put on a show and it was absolutely hilarious!
Day 3: I went to a meeting for new aerospace students. What was really cool to me was that one of the professors I met at that meeting I saw at lunch in the dining hall with all the other students. You just don’t see that interaction at many other universities. At night there was a block party in Columbia Village, where I live on campus, and there was tons of free pizza and a bunch of those blow-up activity houses.
Day 4: I got my schedule! We also had the final games in “Color Wars”, where our team won every event that day (go green!), and then went over to ‘Meet the Greeks’ where there was free food again and students could learn about sororities or fraternities.
Day 5: It’s Saturday!! Everyone’s invited to the fraternity rush events, not just guys, so I checked out two of them. One of them ended up being at the beach, which was exciting because I hadn’t been out there yet. At night, my roommates and I took a trip off-campus and found a club nearby so we were there for most of the night and then went to Taco Bell on our way back :).
Day 6: On Sunday, my roommates and I went out to buy all the little things we needed for our dorm together. Since all the upperclassmen came to campus this weekend I also got to meet up with some friends from back home that go here.
Day 7: On to the next week! It’s Monday, and the first day of classes! About half went right into material while the other half took more time going over the syllabus, but all of them went well!
In short, my first week was awesome! I came here and immediately told myself ‘just get involved’, and now I’d say with the way that’s been working for me that’s the best piece of advice I could give anyone going into college or any new experience.
