<p>From the calendar, freshman orientation begins on Tuesday, Sept. 18. It looks like the dorms open at 8 a.m. that morning as well. I had assumed the new students would arrive on Friday or Saturday, so I'd get there, figure out what I'd forgotten, get it over the weekend and be ready to go by the 18th.</p>
<p>Is there any sense in being on campus on that preceding weekend or are the dorms just unavailable?</p>
<p>When and how does one find out what kind of laptop you need? Do I wait until I'm in the Chicago area to buy it or is it something I buy at home and bring?</p>
<p>Do people get checking accounts in Evanston or is it better to have a credit card from home and use an ATM in town when I need to get cash?</p>
<p>What do you DO at new student orientation? When I did Discover NU, my sponsor at the dorm said she went camping for a week. Is that part of the new student orientation or is that a different program? If it's different, I'd like to know where to find out more about it.</p>
<p>How and when do I go about even getting assigned to a dorm? What is a residential college dorm (?) and is that something worth considering vs. a regular dorm?</p>
<p>I'm obviously the first kid in my family to go to college and we don't know what we are doing. </p>
<p>I don't even know what I'm not thinking to ask. Can anyone with experience give me some insights on how all of this is supposed to work? I live far away and would like to be as organized as possible, or at least know how disorganized I'm going to be when I get there.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance for any insights anyone can provide. I can use all the help I can get so feel free to chime in with any and all advice.</p>
<p>Dorms are unavailable until the morning of freshman orientation. We arrived the night before and stayed in a hotel. Some CA's were in the dorms that night and allowed some freshman to drop their stuff off but not to spend the night (I don't know how common that is).
Your host at DiscoverNU participated in on of the preorientation programs. Information will be posted about those at some point. During orientation, you meet with your advisor, register for classes, meet in your dorms, etc.
Most student I know felt that the orientation week was too long.
The website has information about laptops. You can buy either Mac or PC ahead of time. You have to download some special security software and then you just hook up with an ethernet cord (buy and extra long one because your desk might be far from the jack).
You will get a housing survey later in the spring (June?). You should look at the dorm descriptions on the website and read previous threads about different dorms.
Good luck!</p>
<p>students that don't have checking accounts use US bank on campus. Theres atms around the school, and htat woudl be easiest for most students. I personally ahve two checking accounts, since citibank isn't close enough for it to be feasible to continually withdraw $$.</p>
<p>in terms of getting here, people normally stay in a hotel the night before (as egan said) the first week is mostly socializing and stuff, so your parents shoudl take you to go buy everytyhing you need after you're done unpacking. Some parents stay a second night to make sure everything's okay, but it depends on the student.</p>
<p>The student orientation is gernally just socializing with your dorm and classmates, and also going to general seminars about NU and policies and stuff. The thing your sponsor was talking about is (i think) the week before. They're the prefrosh programs, like project wildcat and freshman urban program. people say they're a lot of fun, but i have no experience with them personally.</p>
<p>Yea.. you can't really move in before the first day of NSW.. well, unless you're in NUMB, but that's different. Um, but yea.. most of the first week is optional other than orientation, convocations, etc. If you don't want to go on tours or such, you don't have to.. I also have two checking accounts because there are no Wachovias in the state of Illinois. </p>
<p>Now to the dorm part.. you can look on the website, but it's not much. The Res College system is amazing.. I live in Jones Res College (Arts), and I love it here. There's either 12/13 themed to different things, Communications, Arts, International Studies, Variety, Engineering.. mind you, not all the people in the dorm follow the theme exactly. Example, I'm an engineer in Jones.. but like the other dorms, each has a feel, and different kinds of people. Visit the ones you're interested in during Preview if you come up.</p>
<p>do a preorientation trip! i was supposed to do pwild, but i hurt my back and wasn't able to go. everyone who went on one LOVED it and i'm sure it was nice to already have some friends on campus.</p>
<p>New Student Week (or, Numerous Students Wasted as we affectionately refer to it) is being renamed Wildcat Welcome this year. it is a pretty long week, but it's definitely better to have your orientation right before school, rather than in the summer like some other, larger schools. if you like to go out, it's one of the more crazy weeks of the quarter.</p>
<p>I think you'll get housing stuff in a few months. There are plently of other threads about housing and stereotypes of different dorms, etc. They do generally hold to be true, in my experience. Most ppl like where they are, though I do know a few kids who transfered this quarter to other dorms. There's also the whole North vs. South campus thing, which I personally don't think is too big of a deal (I'm an RTVF major who has classes mostly down south, but I live up north) and ppl talk about that in other threads.</p>
<p>Preview is the end of April.. there's usually one session where they'll pay for the plane tickets if you're far. For me though, it was the week before APs, so I couldn't go to Preview.</p>