Opinion
Orientation Review: senior vs. first-year
By Caroline Harrington '16, Sophia Wang '19
September 3, 2015
Caroline Harrington '16
Two weeks ago, a new crop of first-years showed up on the Hill to crowds of cheering AA, OA and XA leaders. The enthusiastic leaders, dressed in Salvation Army’s finest mix of colorful ’80s paraphernalia and ugly hats, welcomed Hamilton’s newest students with their classic signs promising “ice cream for breakfast” and “no bedtimes.” Looking through Facebook pictures of friends from my own trip in 2012, now with kids of their own, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. It seemed as though nothing had changed since the day my parents drove me up to 198 College Hill Road in our blue Suburban packed with newly purchased college supplies.
And yet, a lot is different. This year, the administration changed the orientation policy, making a pre-orientation trip a mandatory event for all first-year students. Previously, the trips were optional, and while the majority of students participated, it was only the slight majority. As a terrified first-year in 2012, I was only surrounded by about fifty-two percent of my future classmates.
My trip was the best experience of my life. It beats out coaching an underdog championship basketball team—a feat which, when written in essay form, helped me become a Continental—it beats out high school prom and it probably beats out my amazing experience abroad in Madrid. I met my best friend during that trip and gained immense amounts of confidence through ropes course challenges.
Granted, not everyone can have a perfect trip experience. Sometimes bad luck gets in the way and you don’t mesh with your group members. Maybe you get sick in the woods, or have an irrational fear of bears. But that said, there could always be a takeaway. Coming to college is a huge transition. For many of us, it was the first time we really had to leave home and start over, completely friendless.
The orientation trips serve as an equalizer. Everyone is put in a situation that is far out of his or her comfort zone with six to eight strangers. It’s an outlet for everyone to learn to adapt quickly and simultaneously.
A day after coming home from my trip—and after thoroughly cleaning every inch of my body of a week’s worth of dirt—my roommate showed up. She was of the forty-eight percent of students who opted to skip the pre-orientation opportunity. Coming from that different Hamilton background, I felt like we did not have as much in common. Mariel Radek ’16, a friend who did not go on a trip, said “I didn’t feel like I missed out but I definitely feel like the AA and OA kids were more confident than everyone else who didn’t go on a trip.”
Julia Coash ’16, my best friend from the second we made goofy faces at each other during our pre-orientation hike, said that as a trip leader she thinks “making the trips mandatory brought a lot of diversity to the groups that I haven’t seen in previous years.”
Overall, the administrative change to require the trip can only be a good thing. The overwhelming response has been positive, from both first-years and trip leaders. The only negative is that, as a senior, I can’t return next year and go back to Cranberry Lake to start my Hamilton career over again.
Sophia Wang '19
Is huddling inside a cold sleeping bag, listening to the scratching sound of roaring wind enjoyable? Probably not. If we add the sweaty cheese and rotten apples, we are more inclined to say that no, it is not. So here comes the question: why did we bother ourselves to join a trip that had so many unpleasant parts?
Well, the answer is pretty simple: because it is mandatory. This year all first-year students have to take part in one of those orientation trips. It is the first experiment in putting a once optional tag on everyone: the shared unique experience of orientation trip. We have to admit that this experiment was successful.
In the past years, only around half of students joined the trips. Some students who arrived on campus knew nearly nothing about their peers, while some of them were familiar with other students. This year, things changed. Despite being from different backgrounds, we could easily connect with our fellow classmates as we all experienced the enriching orientation trips. These shared experiences brought us into a spiritually intimate space in a physically unfamiliar place. We focused more on the similarities we share, rather than the differences apparent at first glance. New friends and hectic schedules reduced the homesickness and helped us embrace our college life.
Aside from using this experience in our social life, our friends in the orientation trip meant a lot to us. On the night of the team bonfire, many of us expressed that our friends were the most meaningful parts in our trips. “The actual trips were fun too, but it’s who and how you spend time with that counts,” said a participant in the Animal Care trip, an XA excursion. We gradually knew more about each other in trips and games, as we could still remember the silent killer in the mafia at that dark but warm night with a campfire. We discovered the fantastic talent and life experiences underlying the calm faces of friends. We actually helped each other in the transition to college life, as we felt we knew someone well on this campus.
It is easy to judge our personal experiences, quite arbitrarily with “like” or “dislike,” because we focus more on “self,” as we know we need to gain something from these experiences, such as fun, knowledge or even simply the fulfillment of events themselves. But when we show up as a team, we finally find out that the time spent with friends goes beyond the trip itself. We crossed the boundary from “self” to “others.”
Thanks to the mandatory orientation trip, I met my friends who I might never have had a chance to know. Without the five days we spent together, we might just say “hi” and pass by. It is a loss that I cannot imagine. It is the orientation trip, but it is also more than that. The trip directed us to something better.