Guest Post: Getting the Best Out of Orientation-and Then Some
hey (soon-to-be) freshman, here's a guest post by Anne Crossman, a Stanford-educated author with some tips about how to, uh, get the best out of orientation (and then some!) --darius
So, you’ve got your dorm assignment for the year…your summer reading well underway (!)…and you’ve most likely been hitting the Back to School sales pretty hard in the hopes of making your new home at Stanford a bit, well, homier. Ah yes, I remember the nauseous excitement well.
It was just a few years ago that I, too, had packed every crevice of my parents’ white minivan with what I thought I couldn’t live without for the year, pulling up to Stern Hall at 7:30am as my Twainie RA’s were getting set to unroll the red, uh, foil gift wrap. It took me by complete surprise when they welcomed me by name as if they had been waiting for me for the last four years; any qualms I had about moving away from home vanished.
Friday, August eighth was a monumental day for the incoming freshman of the Class of 2012. Tears were shed in both glee and sorrow. Since the last mailing received on June 27th, the incoming frosh, including myself, have all been anticipating the day where yet another piece of information would be shared to bring us closer to New Student Orientation on September 16th. Rooming assignments haunted me since August began: would I be roomed near my Admit Weekend friends, in THE Branner, the dorm every incoming frosh seemed to be hoping for, near the library, or in the middle of nowhere? Nightmares seemed to occur each night, in which my roommate was incompatible with me and everyone in my dorm was rude, introverted, and unhygienic. Well, this message came rather rapidly, appearing in our stanford webmail inboxes. I immediately clicked on the link to see my future.
This is just a little post about why I love New Student Orientation week, or NSO. I wanted to show the other side of an NSO experience, and why six years later, I still love Stanford and want to thank the NSO coordinators and volunteers for all their hard work and energy.
NSO Volunteers looking exhausted.
Hang in there NSO Volunteers! You are what makes NSO great!
A sea of frosh and parents at Opening Convocation today. MY STORY:
When I was a freshmen, back in 2002 (yeah, I'm getting dated...'06!), I remember vividly driving up University Avenue for the first time with my dad in his big truck. All my things were piled in the back and spilling over into my lap. I anxiously held onto my orientation materials, and just to be sure of things, I quickly reviewed my housing info as we drove closer and closer to Palm Drive. Suddenly I realized -- I had forgotten to accept my housing agreement over the summer! An important looking paper stared back at me without a signature and an overdue return date. I started crying. I was so stressed out. I thought, maybe I won't have a place to live! Maybe my first week at school will just fall to pieces in a logistical nightmare! (I had no idea how anything worked... I was a freshman, for God's sake!)
NSO Inculcates Unwitting Freshman, Transfer Students; Parents Never to See their Children Again
Beware non-freshmen: the time has come to face the inevitable. A new crop of freshmen -- fodder for the less-drunk-than-you-think-he-is SAE fratter, the annoying overachievers in Polisci 2, the ones who think they're cool enough to go to Kairos Wine & Cheese -- are about to arrive on campus.
But how do the freshmen become the way they are? I blame it all on over-programmed and highly-scripted NSO. A sampling of the events, with commentary and interpretation.
Tuesday, 1-3PM. Green Library Tours. Um, yeah. I'm guessing this is for the parents. What are they going to show them? The warm-and-fuzzy Bender Room, with every couch and chair occupied with upperclass students fleeing the chaos of move-in day?
Tuesday 7:30-9:30PM. House Meeting and Social Activity. I know cheesy icebreakers when I see them. I used to hate that game when everyone went around and said their name and some sort of sign or something, and then each person had to remember all the people before them. I was always at the end and would forget everyone's names.
But everyone will know each other's names through Facebook stalking anyway, so that's not a concern.
Tuesday 12PM. Website Open for PWR. Sucks to be you, suckas! Enjoy the Rhetoric of Whatever.
Wednesday, 8:30AM. Chemistry Placement Test. Sucks to be you, suckas! But you could stop pretending to be a premed and not wake up this effin' early.
Wednesday, 2:40-3:30PM. For Students Considering Humanities and Social Sciences: Choosing Math and Science Courses. For the wusses who won't take fitty-one, I suggest Math 19, which seems like the easiest course at Stanford (see "Gut Courses" entry below).
Wednesday, 4:30-5:15PM First Course: Feed your Body, Mind and Spirit. I like it how at Stanford, all the various religions pretend to get along. InterVarsity reigns supreme, though.
Thursday, 9:30 and 10:30AM. Associated Students of Stanford University (student activity information panel). The froshie's first chance to realize that the ASSU does nothing.
Thursday, 11:30AM-12:30PM. Public Service and the Arts: Stanford Students Dance in Prisons. "What are the arts, especially dance, doing to address this invisibility and what is the relationship of the arts to prisons, punishment and rehabilitation?"
I couldn't help but think of this video, and wonder if it's anything like this. If so, it might be kinda fun:
If it's not, this sounds like it has the substantive level of your average PWR course.
Friday, 1-3PM. Hume Writing Center Open House. Has anyone actually ever been there? I don't even know where it is.
Saturday, 5:30PM. Stanford football versus Oregon. If we score a touchdown, I'll be pleased. Oregon just crushed Michigan (admittedly not much of an accomplishment these days) and might challenge Cal for number two in the Pac-10. Predicted score: Oregon 52, Stanford 7.
Monday, 9PM-11PM. O-Show. Around the fourth a capella group, it becomes insufferable. And then you have to squirm through another five or so.
According to the Washington Post, a letter from 12 college presidents including Dickinson College President William G. Durden called the rankings "misleading" and "not in the interest of prospective students in finding a college or university that is well suited to their education beyond high school."
In particular, a lot of the criticism has centered around the U.S. News' "peer reputation" survey, which asks school administrators to rank other schools in their region, often as many as 150, according to the Washington Post. Schools can rank from 1 to 5, or answer "don't know."
Ultimately, lots of buzz is going around the college administrator circuit hoping to offer as little information as necessary to U.S. News for its annual rankings. Just give them data they could get anyways such as enrollment and transfer rates, degrees conferred and financial aid, some advocate.
In the end, I agree with Robert J. Massa, vice president for enrollment and college relations at Dickinson College, who asks, "Why should we help U.S. News sell magazines?" That is, after all, all they want to do.
In an effort to get students excited about the upcoming Democratic presidential primaries, the Stanford Democrats conducted straw polling in White Plaza last week and during the Admit Weekend Activities Fair to see which contender is most popular among the students here. Sneakily, the group included Al Gore among the potential candidates even though he has not done much to move in that direction. Probably a little bit of wishful thinking on their part (and what can I say? I'm a fan too). They also excluded the several other Democratic contenders, including Dennis Kucinich, who should at least get some of the sympathy vote. But for what they're worth, the results are pretty interesting (150 total votes):
In their ProFroPo (that's "Prospective Freshman Poll") during the Activities Fair, Senator Obama scored an astounding 68% among the ProFros, compared to 9% each for Clinton, Edwards, and Gore. Wow.
Student Groups, For the ProFros - Come to Activities Fair!
You've already heard all the warnings about taking Admit Weekend with a grain of salt but quite frankly, I've never heard of a single student (well, maybe this one) who took Admit Weekend for its face value. You're smart, you're here, and you already have the tools to go out and discover the "real" Stanford.
What constitutes a "real" Stanford? The classes? The incredible access to research that undergraduates have? Open-minded, accessible faculty? The funding Stanford provides? Great overseas opportunities? All of these, yes - but it's your classmates that will really help you find your anchor here.
Stanford has an amazing array of student groups. When I first came to Stanford, I found it difficult to believe that students were actually doing and running some of these groups. Groups like FACES, which organizes two professional conferences every year at Stanford and in China for student leaders. ASES, which promotes networking and mentorship for budding entrepreneurs in Asia. FACE AIDS, fighting AIDS in Africa. EPATT - East Palo Alto Tennis and Tutoring. Amazing events being put on by Stanford chapters of professional organizations, such as IEEE; BASES, connecting students with Venture Capital firms. SIG, providing Stanford students with internships in Washington, DC and beyond at key policy institutes around the world. The Stanford Dems, connecting campus to local California issues as well as coordinating student volunteers for national elections. There are several more that I'm missing right now.
I'm sure you've read tons of material on picking a school that fits, but how can you be sure? Picking 'the right' school can be a terrifying decision, but now that you have Stanford as an option, rest assured that at this point, you're probably only picking from some pretty stellar options. Whether Stanford already sticks out, or if you have to decide from a list of many top-notch institutions, read on to hear the musings of one very content junior who headed out West instead of elsewhere, and maybe you'll get a better feel for Stanford's fit for you.
You've already heard all the warnings about taking Admit Weekend with a