Earlier this summer, I had the luxury (if you can call it that) of attending Freshman Orientation. Since this is an accredited university, I may as well grade the event. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it deserved anything higher than a C.
You see, for a freshman, orientation is the big step before classes actually begin. It’s supposed to be the place where you meet future classmates, find out where your classes are going to be, and have an overall view of what life on campus is like. But at my orientation, it seemed that the goal was to bore the freshmen with repetitive information, and basically make us all go to sleep every time we were in the auditorium.
In the beginning, orientation wasn’t that bad, and seeing all of our orientation leaders walking down the aisles of the auditorium to “Jesus Walks” by Kanye West was definitely a plus. I was definitely awake by then.
But things seemed to slowly deteriorate by the minute. After sitting in the auditorium for an extra 15 minutes to listen to our leaders introduce themselves and tell us their majors, we were finally separated into groups according to our colleges to go on a tour of the campus.
Let me just mention that it was incredibly hot and humid outside, and the tour of the campus was complete torture. It was so hot that I don’t think anybody even paid attention to what our leader was telling us. We were forced to walk the whole campus under the burning hot sun of Florida with no water, no air and no golf carts to take us around. They should have given us little fans and bottles of water to at least refresh ourselves a bit. They should definitely do that next year, or otherwise this horrible trend of making all the little freshmen suffer through a campus tour under the sun will make people abandon orientation before completing it. Things couldn’t get any better.
After the 90 minute tour under the hot sun, we were finally led inside to get some A/C. We were all supposed to go to what our leaders called “sessions” – which were little meetings about specific things on campus. The first one that I went to was one called, “Be smart and be healthy!” On my handy brochure, it said that we would find out about how to become a peer educator and the fun ways that you could get involved in the campus community, and also how to build your resume and make a difference during your college years. First of all, they never even mentioned how to become a peer educator. Second of all, they never said anything about how to build our resume. All they did do was tell us the same information we have known since 6th grade: Don’t eat too much junk food, wear condoms and prevent yourselves from STD’s. All I heard was Blah, blah, blah; as if we didn’t know that stuff already, how many more times did we have to listen to that? Next time, I think they should actually focus on the description that the brochure says, or maybe come up with more entertaining games other than playing jeopardy on how to be healthy. What a waste of time.
The next session that I went to was one about how to get involved on campus, which I must say was the best session that I went to. Not only were they actually telling us things that we all might be interested in, but they were giving us a little bit of insight on how to meet people, how to get involved, and just how to have good, clean fun on campus by joining organizations and/or clubs. I actually think I learned something from them, which was good, considering I had felt like I had wasted my time the whole day.
After attending all the sessions, we were all supposed to go back to the auditorium and sit back down to meet up with our leaders. But what we didn’t know is that they had actually prepared something for us – a series of skits that could have not been any funnier. They touched on subjects like racism, relationships and parties. They were all entertaining and actually helpful when it came to situations such as the ones they portrayed. To be honest, the skits were the best part of orientation.
Day two of orientation however, was not quite as pleasant as the first. I should have just brought a blanket and a pillow with me to the auditorium. Not only did they make us sit there for an hour listening to the “oh so, very important" meeting called “Money Matters,” but they kept repeating the same things over and over again. Half of the freshmen there were in deep sleep listening to their iPods and not even caring about what the counselors there had to say. If that meeting was meant to be for the parents, then they should have let THEM listen to it. Not us.
Overall, Orientation was helpful but incredibly boring. They should have tried to interact more with the audience, instead of giving us too much information about everything at once. The only good part about it was finding out that there was a Starbucks on campus. Other than that, I think I could have cared less about what all the people there had to say.
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7 comments:
have you ever been to a college orientation before? what can you compare it to? they are all like that..
be glad that you got something useful out of it. some kids aren't so lucky. not that FAU is terrible when it comes to orientations. in fact, we're a lot better than others (i've participated in several college orientations around the state).
every fall orientation in florida is hot, humid, and chalk-full of endless tours and repetitive information. the important thing is to try to learn something. learn something about your new school, your peers, and yourself. if you go in there with the right mindset, you will get a lot out of it. if you're pessimistic, the time will pass like paris hilton in cell block 9. just make the most of it..
and give the orientation leaders a break. they're just ordinary college kids like you and me. could you imagine trying to provide an insightful and meaningful experience to thousands of uncomfortable freshmen? it ain't easy. i know i couldn't do it.
remember, it's orientation. not a retreat. the purpose is to welcome you and help you get situated. if you have fun, that's even better. but the important thing is becoming acclimated in your new environment.
Of course I haven't been to orientation before. Obviously I had no idea of what to expect. I'm not criticizing the leaders, they did a great job, because like you said, I wouldn't be able to do it either. But, I guess I was expecting to have a little bit more fun. Not get bored to death.
i hated my orientation. however, i did meet a few people that i am still friends with, which im happy about. but i suppose this is just a rite of passage everyone in college must go through, even if it puts you to sleep.
This blog was actually a great review and it would be nice if someone at FAU Orientation was made aware of it.
If students aren't getting anything out of it -- and they're obviously tuning out -- then it needs to be revised.
Oh, and the golf carts with fans and water... YEAH... they definitely need that. They shoul dget golf carts with fans and then hand out Owl Water... an actual drink produced in conjunction with athletics.
In the meantime, NightOwls has carts they can use.
Did they give evaluations to fill out at the end of the orientation?
Constructive criticism would be the way to solve some of the problems experienced, especially the heat/lack of water in the incredibly hot Florida weather (which should have been a given.) None-the-less, I agree that you sometimes get what you give, but you do need some kind of bone thrown.
dude orientation sucks, who cares if it's supposed to be a learning experience blah blah boring. They don't need to go over every mind numbing deatil about class registration and student life. And They don't tell u antying useful. If the orientation leaders offered REAL advise about FAU everyone living in algonquin would have an updated living will.
Hey, what's up? I have no problem remaining anonymous. My name is Bradley and I was an Orientation Leader this past summer. You may have been in my group. I honestly don't remember if you were or not because I met about 500 students in my groups this summer alone. Not to mention the over 2,000 who went through Orientation in total. And I only remember 1/50 of the names. Anyway, not only was I an Orientation Leader this past summer but I am now one of the two Student Assistants for Orientation for next year's team so I know my share of orientation information.
Basically, it boils down to us having a certain amount of information that we have to give to the students. We could print it all up in a book and have everyone read it. Who wants to read a 200 page book about one college? We could reduce some of the info and get it down to one day. That would go from two 8 hour days to one 12 hour day. And that's just the lectures. that doesn't count the student activities or the tour. we could just say "Have at it!" and let everyone figure it out on their own but that creates more problems than it fixes. So trust me when i say this: We have tried to make orientation better for the students and have found (after time and time again) that this is the best way to do it.
The dance to "Jesus Walks" was one of the things we added this year to make it better for the students. It was a lot of work to get it down, I'll let you know. Everybody likes the Skits that we did ("Handle With Care"). I think that it's because we actually made up everything ourselves which is something we did new this year also. Previous Teams were given scripts by professionals from other schools or from companies and it didn't have the personal FAU feeling that our skit had. The leaders are there for the students. We did everything to get the students to have fun and learn SOMETHING, if anything.
As for the Breakout Sessions, we cannot control (unfortunately) what the presenters say in their sessions or if they even show up (it's true). What we can control is the fact that we offer them and offer different ones at different times. some are great, some not so much. I went some of the "not so much" sessions at my orientation too. We just have to have them.
Money Matters is never a good session. If you noticed, there is an Orientation leader sitting next to the presenter during this session. this is the DREADED position for this block of time amongst all the leaders. NO ONE wants to do it because it is so boring! Several leaders fall asleep during this sessions so you're not alone.
Don't be so sour about Orientation. At least you learned something about getting involved on campus and had some fun during it. You are always welcome to apply to be an Orientation Leader yourself if you are interested in making the process better. We accept application at the beginning of every Fall Semester. Everyone's got to do it. It's always going to be long, it's always going to be hot. And that's one thing that every freshman student shares when they start their college careers.
And for the record, the tour is 75 minutes, not 90.
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