See:

http://www.middlebury.edu/campuslife/activities/outdoor/FOO+Home.htm

Although many students (myself included) complained about how hectic Orientation was and how we would have preferred to just relax and make friends on our own, being rushed around campus all week was kind of exciting. We were forced to move and interact. That said, I think more of Orientation should be optional. Also, most of the presentations could be cut down in length without losing any quality.

I hesitate to suggest adding to Orientation, but there was one area of campus life that should have been mentioned during Orientation but wasn’t. We had presentations on (generalized) discrimination, sexual harrassment, stress, and other fun stuff, but no mention was ever made of the gay community on campus. I’m not suggesting we add an entire presentation about this, but I think a small announcement as part of some more general mandatory meeting would be useful, for two reasons. First, it’s really difficult for many queer students to enter a new environment like Middlebury without knowing anything about the college’s and students’ attitudes on issues tied so closely to their identities. Students may assume silence means intolerance. Second, there have been a few incidents of anti-LGBTQ discrimination on campus in the past couple of years, and the entire freshman class (not just queer students) could benefit from a simple, concise reminder that LGBTQ issues and people are present on campus.

1. MOO should not be required. I would have dropped out of Middlebury if you made me go on MOO. Just like I’m not taking a semester off at the risk of having to do Feb ski-down. Scary! (Ok, so I’m being a little extreme; I’m far more outdoorsy than I was when I arrived, but I did it on my own terms! But I will never, ever ski.)

2. MOO should be available to anyone who wants to go. If you can’t do that, stop hyping it as a life changing experience. My friends who went certainly enjoyed themselves immensely, but no one had earth shattering experiences.

3. Orientation scheduling is out of hand. I was exhausted by the end of orientation. I needed a week’s vacation afterward, but, alas, I had classes.

4. Athletes and International students need to be integrated into orientation better. I know so few of them.

5. I second Ryan Kellett’s “Yay for guest posts!”

As for how many things go on during orientation– in hindsight, I didn’t feel like there was too much going on, but I definitely accumulated so many brochures, handouts, schedules, and other paperwork over that week that I barely read any of them but didn’t want to get rid of any “in case there was something important.” I also agree that the summer reading assignment was a failure for my commons–awkward is certainly a good word to describe our discussion (or lack thereof). However, I think this has more to do with the book selected than with the program in general– my Wonnacott friends who read The Tipping Point loved it.

I also agree with Topher that incoming students should be encouraged to prioritize right from the start. I, at least, felt obligated to attend every event, and somewhat guilty when I did not. I wish I had asked my JC or CRA which events were actually crucial and which ones were truly optional. Students should be reassured that missing a few orientation events will not ruin their entire college experience and encouraged to make informed decisions in that regard, not because orientation is unbearably stressful, but because the rest of the college year can be.

I don’t think the answer to the stress and the overscheduling is to “slow down”. The fireworks of various orientation activities that are crammed into the first week give a very clear message to us incomings: College is fun, wild, and hectic, and you’re going to need to learn to cope with the stress. I think that is a very important message to get across. I also think it’s important to address the stress – but not by cutting down on available activities; instead, by placing value in OUR ability to choose for ourselves what is a healthy balance of group activities, unstructured bonding time, and resting time. The overwhelming load of activities available in orientation introduced me to a cruel, cruel, but undeniable reality of college: there will be many more events available to me in a given day than I have time to appreciate. I had to accept that reality and adjust my expectations, and I think many people passed by this opportunity to opt out of some of the activities and find their own pace, hence the “rushed” and “exhausted” feeling some describe. We will make Middlebury students stronger not by denying them the opportunity to whittle down their schedule for themselves, but by informing them that they will have to do so and letting them practice. They’ll need to do so sooner or later; if we fine-tune their schedule for them, we are denying them a chance to learn an important component skill of time management.