For many rising college students their summer orientation is when everything is set up for the upcoming school year. Important things like deciding your freshman classes are done at orientation.
In my experience orientation was the worst place to make my freshman class schedule.
Ultimately, the main goal at orientation at a big university is to push a large load of students through a process, and do so quickly. Well this method doesn’t work for someone like me who can be slow to act when carefully considering the pros and cons to each course before committing to them.
During my session to schedule my classes with the other rising freshman we first gathered in a large computer lab where we were informed on how to sign up for new courses.
There were several college assistants/students and some college advisors to help with this confusing process.
Some of these individuals (the students) I felt were not entirely qualified to be giving advice about the types of classes I should enroll in. Towards the end of the session many were done and submitted their schedule without question, yet ,I remained pondering why mine did not turn out the way I had expected.
Still I was content with my schedule enough that I was about to send it in as well.
Then I was approached by a graduate student who sat down and attempted to aggressively rearranged the list of my college classes to gave me some absurd courses that were beyond my known capabilities. This lady did not know me or my learning strengths or weaknesses. She was not an advisor and she barely listened to what I was had to say. To me this schedule looked like a horribly written list that would cause me to utterly suffer and hate my first semester of college. To appease her aggression I submitted these courses.
She left satisfied while I was about to break down in tears.
However, I was not about to sit and let this slide. I felt like I had been shoved aside in order for the orientation process to be completed.
So I set up an appointment with a real advisor to privately sit down with me, away from the rush of orientation, to construct a real schedule that I knew would suite me better. After looking at my past high school courses and listening to what my personal goals were she gave me more reasonable suggestions on how I might go about achieving my goals. By the end I was able to come away with a better understanding of how my freshman year will go (instead of blindly working in classes I had no business taking). I was even able to opt out of more general education classes than I was originally told I could.
Huge programs, like college orientation, might want to overlook your interests, goals, or thoughts and choose to ignore them in order to complete the activity within a selected time slot.
When making big decisions don’t let issues slide.
Don’t be overlooked.
Lily 