Orientation

I am 24 years old. I have a Bachelors Degree. And I am going back to school for a 1 year Associates Degree program. And yes, they did make me attend freshman orientation.

It was simply awful. The first day consisted entirely of touring the campus that I don't have any classes on, learning how to live with roommates, being away from home for the first time, alcohol awareness, life on campus, and icebreakers.

In order to get to the school I had to wake up at 5am, and leave at 6am. So keep in mind that I was entirely way too cranky the whole first day.

First, let's start with the tours. At my school there are two campuses. One for academics and one for the culinary classes. I do not have to take academics due to transfer credits, and therefore that campus has no true relevance to me. So that was boring. Also, it was hot as hell out, and there was no shade to be found. They had us walking around, very slowly and moving as a pack, for what felt like hours. We even had to eat outside on the pavement with the scorching sun. They made us go inside to get sandwiches, and then leave the VACANT and air conditioned building to sit and suffer. I, of course, did the responsible thing, and ate my sandwich in the air conditioned bathroom. I'm just so very classy.

Next, let's move on to the icebreakers. Any one who has ever had to experience an icebreaker knows just how miserable they are. I'm going to go ahead an assume that the Orientation Leaders are pure evil. The first one involved standing around in a circle. One person would be in the middle, spin with their eyes closed, stop and point to someone and say "bang." The person who was just shot would have to crouch down, and the two people next to them would have to face each other, make guns with their hands, and pretend shoot while repeatedly saying "bang bang bang bang," until someone stopped to breathe. The loser would then go into the middle, be the spinner, and then leave the circle and sit down for the rest of the game. The name of this icebreaker was creatively "Bang Bang." It was awful. When it was my turn to shoot someone, I quickly lost so I could sit out. It was worth it.

Another one was to help us learn each others names. We would say our name, then a type of food. The next person would have to repeat it, and add their own, and it would continue on. Luckily, I was second so I didn't have to pretend to care too much. For my food, I selected falafel. Unfortunately no one knew what the hell a falafel is. Mind you, this is a culinary school. Even the Orientation leaders didn't know! I was visibly annoyed throughout the rest of the icebreaker as everyone else selected safe foods like "apple" and "hamburger."

There were more, but I'm too annoyed now to type them. Maybe I'll add them later. But you pretty much get the idea of how my first day of orientation went. My head was pounding by the end, and I had to take out my contacts in order to drive to my cousins. Thank god they didn't make me stay on campus and attend the activity night. I may have snapped.

Day 2 was actually very useful. Too bad all of the info was horrendously condensed and there was no time to ask questions because by the time one session had ended, another had already been going on for 2 minutes. But they had a session just for commuters while another session of dorm life was going on, and I got the important info on parking passes and such. It really made no sense to me that the useful info day was so short (we were done by 12) while the useless day was so long that it was necessary to fill in all the blanks with endless icebreakers (I was there til 5:30, and it continued after I left).

Well I guess it would make sense if I were a freshman, even though I remember hating my orientation when I went to Northeastern. But they really should have allowed me to skip the first day and only attend the second, like I asked when I called them, instead of wasting my time and making me grumpy.

On the plus side, I got to see Jenna's apartment and it's wicked nice, even if her cat does seem to enjoy watching me go to the bathroom. Cats are just creepy.

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