September 6, 2012
“Well…this is awkward…” remarked my Orientation Leader in the face of yet another drawn out silence. Ten of us were seated around a rickety wooden table under the tent on the Dunham green, the vast majority of us had our eyes firmly fixed on the glowing screens of our cell phones balanced in our laps, texting friends far away, most likely with some sort of variation of, “Orientation’s frickin’ weird, man.”
And we all would have been right. Hamilton’s orientation program will most likely always be remembered as a painfully uncomfortable and drawn series of activities we had to endure, and there’s really no alternative. To start classes the day we arrive on campus would be impractical and chaotic, and expecting a group of anxious and clueless first-years to acquire the friends necessary for the long walk between the light and dark sides without some third party intervention would be unrealistic.
No matter how much I bemoaned Orientation, upon reflection, it is one of many necessary evils, like floor meetings and roommate contracts, that freshman must endure their first term on campus. Let me take a moment to thank the Orientation leaders and organizers for their time and effort. I acknowledge that it’s not easy to facilitate good, clean fun for a group of teenagers who are perpetually cursing under their breath at double points for dry week.
I myself was an admitted participant in Orientation bashing. Determined to be “cool,” and “chill,” refusing to show any sort of enthusiasm for group activities or mandatory meals, at times, I was my own worst enemy this past week, failing until more than halfway through the program to revel in the uncomfortable nature of my first moments on the Hill and find the fun in humorously disorganized activities (see: The confused look on the faces of the Campus Security officers when students entered en masse to take group shots behind their desk) and color wars shenanigans.
It wasn’t until a service trip to the Clare Bridge Assisted Living Home, our final activity, that I realized our group of Dirty Dunham denizens had bonded, awkward icebreakers be damned or, perhaps, credited. From then on, I have been kept awake (and most likely kept others awake…) by the buzzing of phones as texts were circulated in our group chats late into the night.
Before we knew it, the ultimate goal of Orientation, to help new students acclimate to their surroundings and offer them an outlet to become familiar with at least a handful of new faces, had been fulfilled. While I found myself wishing for both more geographic diversity (with respect to the two sides of campus) and more naptime, once all was said and done, Orientation was more useful than painful.