Freshman Orientation
is not all fun and games like everyone makes it out to be. Freshman Orientation
is basically a way to get to meet your classmates and is often what kicks off
your freshman year. If you are about to be going into college and you’re about
to do the whole freshman orientation thing, then I have some advice for you because
freshman orientation was nothing like I expected it to be.
Freshman Orientation
Was Not As Fun As People Made It Out to Be.
Before freshman orientation
kicked off, I was very excited. This is the chance to meet new people that will
be in your life for possibly the next four years. I was expecting to be in this
huge auditorium with access to talk to whoever you want. The movies always make
it seem like you’re going to meet your best friend on the first day of
orientation.
What really happens,
at least for me, was they assign you into smaller groups and then you go into
the large auditorium, but you are still supposed to sit with your small groups.
Eventually you will leave the auditorium with your small group and you will
have to go to the different activities they have planned. It is actually very
awkward with this group because you know no one and you’re not making friends
on your own. It is more like they’re trying to force friendships onto you which
never works. Sometimes you can get lucky and you will be put into a group with
someone who is compatible with you. Y’all will click and be instant best
friends. However, you could have the opposite happen. You could be put into a group
with 20 other people with who you are not compatible with. I can honestly say
that out of the 24 other people in my orientation group, I ended up being
friends with about 2, and we didn’t become friends until sophomore year.
We Still Have to
Participate in Ice Breakers.
I thought I left
this in the past, but no. You will have to participate in an ice breaker or ice
breakers. I don’t know why we have to do this. It never makes me feel less awkward
than I already am, it just makes me feel like a dork. You might get lucky and do
an ice breaker with the entire auditorium at once so you don’t have 4,000 people
staring at you. I was not so lucky. Each small group had to create a song or
skit to introduce ourselves to the rest of the small groups in the big auditorium.
No one will probably remember your skit in a month, but it is still embarrassing
to participate in and you will never forget it.
You Might Skip an
Event. Or Two.
Freshman Orientation
has a long list of activities lined up that you are supposed to attend and
participate in. That being said, there is only so much one person can take
before they need a good 13 hour nap to recuperate. Freshman Orientation was
four days long and the events usually begun at 7:30 and ended at 4:00 pm. I
will admit that there were some mornings were I could not get up. I might have
skipped the first event and then snuck into the next one. It really is not a
big deal if you miss one or two as long as you attend the events they take roll
in. After the first day, you can probably guess which events you wont be missed
at.
