I arrived, bleary eyed and grumpy at 7:50, to find a line of people at least 100 strong outside the building where we were told to meet. I stood in this line, in the sun (it was already mid-80s, that early in the morning. I took this as a very bad sign), for a good twenty minutes. The boy standing in front of me was mildly interesting, but not twenty minutes worth of talking interesting, and I always find it kind of awkward to stop talking to someone in a line, because it’s not like you can walk away. You just have to kind of trail off whatever conversation you were having, and pretend to start texting someone, or start listening to your iPod, or become really fascinated with a patch of grass off to your left.
We finally got ushered into the building, and sorted into groups. Our orientation leader took us on a tour around the campus (it was mid-90s at this point), and led us in several icebreaker games that succeeded only in showing me how obnoxious and/or boring the rest of my group was. (I know I’m starting to sound like a bit of a Negative Nancy right now, but bear with me, I need the catharsis. I’m usually not this grumpy, I promise.) The rest of the day was filled with workshop after workshop seemingly named solely for the purpose of introducing alliteration to the freshmen (“Capture College!” “Get That Grade!”). The subject matter, unfortunately, was all basically the same. I was told to “be organized” four times, “budget your spending” fifteen, and I lost track of how many times someone told me to “get involved!”
The campus is pretty large, and I think they placed all consecutive activities on opposite sides of the campus on purpose, in order to weed out the weak. The only satisfaction I got all day was watching the girls that wore their best high heels try to power walk across grass when it was 101 degrees outside. Heh. That was fun. The activities that were planned for us at night were okay, so I listened to the amusingly horrible karaoke for a while, and then spent the rest of the time dancing or playing video games. We went back to our halls, the people who I thought might be okay friends went off to get wasted on the vodka someone had smuggled in, and I hurried to the shelter of my dorm. My roommate turned out to be okay, so we talked for a little while, and then I bought Cheetos and Skittles from one of the vending machines downstairs, and texted my boyfriend until I fell asleep.
The second day was filled with more boring lectures, and since I was very anxious about getting any of the classes I wanted (since freshmen register last, AND I was at the last orientation), I started to feel like I was going to rip my hair out. When the department head for my major, who was supposed to be taking us to sign up for classes, told us she was going to tell us “in detail, what we would be doing for the next four years”, I almost laughed. And man, when she said in detail she meant in detail. Luckily, I had put all the classes I wanted into my “shopping cart” the day before, and my mom (after a late night call from me) had logged into my account and was trying to get me those classes the second the counseling hold was taken off. As of now, I am only OFFICIALLY in two classes, one of which is just a b.s. class I added so that I’d be closer to the twelve units required to receive financial aid. I’m high on the waitlist for some of the classes I ACTUALLY want to take though (Like a beginning strings class! I’d learn to play violin!!), so cross your fingers for me!
Anyway, I’ve never, ever been happier to see my mom drive up. I got a giant Teriyaki burger from Carl’s Jr. afterwards (heaven), and life started to look semi-okay again. As of now I am feeling even more nervous for college than I was before, and even less excited. Isn’t that the opposite of what Orientation is supposed to do?
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