<p>Who's been to orientation already? What classes did u sign up for? How was the process? Tired? Thoughts? experiences? new friends? plzz share</p>
<p>D is gone on out of town and doesn't post here anyway so I'll give you my impressions and what she told me about hers.</p>
<p>Mine:
So happy she selected this school as it CLEARLY is the perfect fit for her. The parent sessions were awesome!!! The orientation guides our great resources, talk to them one-on-one if you can. The CLA presentation was a bit tedious (see below) as it was a repeat of the CLA open house attended in April. Make sure you do the optional parent program at night SOOOOO worth it and I was able to show D things the next day that I thought she would be interested in. I was amazed that having lived in the TCs twice and doing business there often, there was so much I did not know about. Out standing Safety Presentation! The housing lady, Lisa Schulte, is a crack up!!!</p>
<p>Hers:
If you did all the things they asked you to in order to be ready for orientation and if you have visited campus and/or did the [admitted college] open house, you will be a little bit bored. It pays to do your "grad planner" ahead of time and practice "class search" from one stop. Not enough free time to just explore and meet other kids. She got all the classes she wanted at the times she wanted(she has a sweet schedule). Apparently Welcome Week will be more of a get to know campus and find out what is all available, Orientation's main focus(for the students) is registering for classes.</p>
<p>PARENTS: IMO, stay after for a day after and share what you learned in your sessions, it is different than what your student learned.</p>
<p>GO GOLDEN GOPHERS!!!</p>
<p>Here's an overview of pretty much everything that happens. I have the breakdown with what they called each activity, but here are some general observations or things you should know first.</p>
<ol>
<li>Know the questions you want answered before hand. I didn't really know the schedule, so it was hard for me to know when I would have a chance to ask something. If you find someone who may be able to answer your question, ask them because the topic may not come up again during orientation.</li>
<li>Paper!!!! Between the information fair at the beginning and other point where people will had out brochures, you can end up will a lot of things to carry around. They give you a bag at the beginning, but a small backpack would be very convenient to keep everything. Bring a folder to keep all the extra brochures and paper in too. </li>
<li>Have you're health insurance information. You need the company, company phone number, and policy number before you register. I knew I needed my policy number, but I didn't have the phone number. If you don't have everything, you'll have to register for the university health insurance and go back to change it later.</li>
<li>Agreed about the "free time." The only real free time is before you go to bed. Welcome week is definitely going to be more focused with opportunities to meet people than was orientation.</li>
<li>Have a good idea of the Liberal Education Requirements and what classes you will be taking first semester.</li>
<li>The whole program is directed very well. You a definitely guided to where you need to be and when. Although you need to find your way to the second day building from breakfast by yourself. (see below)</li>
</ol>
<p>No for the actual breakdown.</p>
<p>Optional Morning Activities:
You'll arrive and drop you're bags off at Yudof (it'll be pretty easy to find since you'll either see people walking away or going toward it as you walk up), check in, and they'll give you a bag or materials. Some of it you'll need and some of it you won't. It's basically walking around Coffman Union looking at a bunch of different information booths. They also have some tours and things, but I found the listed activities a lot less organized than I expected.</p>
<p>University Welcome:
Sort of a cheesy "whose glad to be here" type thing. They just tell you generally what is happening through orientation, but it is far from listing out a schedule of what you will do. It is the last time the students see their parents till about 5.</p>
<p>Let's Get it Started:
The students are directed to different rooms in Coffman Union where they meet their group orientation leader and about 14 other kids in their group. You will spend the rest of the day with this group and they will all be in the same college as you. It's a lot of "icebreaking" and "what do you expect at/look forward to about college."</p>
<p>Blueprint for success (3 rotations):
Transitioning to College:
This was more what you expect at college. The leader makes the group consider situations that deal with time management.
Navigating The U:
This was the first i guess official information type thing. They tell you about student groups, health services, laptops things, etc. It's a lot of general information.</p>
<p>You're Home on Campus:
This is a presentation about living in the residence halls. What you can/can't do/bring. Information about move in. Etc. Their is also a separate presentation for those who will commute to campus, but the vast majority of students go to the living on campus presentation, so follow where everyone else goes.</p>
<p>College Meetings:
This session gives you information about your specific college, and you also get to meet with your adviser in a small group. The adviser gives that small group general information about registering for classes. They will basically tell you what the majority of people in that group will be taking since many have to fill up general credits and a lot of the general credits come from required courses for the specific college. This might also be where you find out how to register. I forget.</p>
<p>The Next Step:
Sort of a break session where your group leader will ask you something like "how do you feel. Overwhelmed? Tired?" or something like that. They will tell you a little about what will be happening that night.</p>
<p>U Card:
U Card presentation to basically cover the topics of what the U Card is, what is does, where/when you will get it, etc. You'll actually get the U Card on day 2.</p>
<p>Diner and Overnight check-in:
You'll go to dinner at centennial hall. Then you will go to frontier hall where you will pick up your back, be assigned to a room, and drop some stuff off in the room.</p>
<p>Pieces of the Puzzle:
Basically a 2 hour theatrical presentation about "issues facing college students." There's a lot of "the U is a diverse campus and we should all respect each other" and also other topics like drugs, alcohol, etc. It does go kind of long, but it's fairly funny and entertaining for what you would normally expect from that type of presentation. It's given by the combination of all the group leaders too. A small session will follow in your small groups where you will kind of talk about some of the topics.</p>
<p>Evening activities:
You can finally relax. Either go to Goldy's Game Room in the Coffman Union Basement, hang out in the frontier hall lounge, check out equipment to play a game outside, or go to bed. I believe they provide pizza in the frontier lounge. They really don't care when you go to bed. You'll have a key card to get you into frontier and a key to get you into your room.</p>
<p>Breakfast:
You'll check out of Frontier and go to Coffman for breakfast. You could probably stop at the U Card place in Coffman before breakfast so you won't have to wait in line.</p>
<p>College Stuff:
You'll go to the building you're group leader told you the day before. Once you get to the building, they'll give you some presentations that vary by college. We had information about studying abroad and computers.</p>
<p>Registration:
Then the registration finally starts. At some point the first day, they gave you a "passport" that said when you met with your adviser about your schedule. It starts a 10:30 and is staggered by 15 minutes. They will setup a schedule and direct you to a computer lab where you actually register. Pay attention to the part on the first day where they tell you how to register. It seemed somewhat confusing until they actually showed us how it worked. That definitely helped.
You will probably have a small information fair setup that you can look around until you actually meet with your adviser.</p>
<p>U Card:
If you did not get your U Card in the morning, you should go to get it before you talk with your adviser (if you have time), or after you register. You'll set up a TCF account with your U Card if you want to and you'll also deposit money in the GopherGold account.</p>
<p>Basically, once you're done with registering and have you're U Card, you can leave.</p>
<p>wow, the U of M is huge and I have no sense of direction... I don't think I'll ever find some of those places by myself. Do you end up rooming with someone overnight? That would be really nice because then there's a chance my roomie has a better sense of direction that I do, if not then at least I won't feel so alone, lol.</p>
<p>Yes, during the overnight check-in part, you do find a person from your group to room with. You are directed the whole first day so finding where you are going is no problems since you don't really have to find anything. Just follow your group. Anywhere you go on the second day will be somewhere you were on the first day. I did have a fairly good sense of where important things were from the first day, so that helped on the second day. Also, Coffman Union is where you'll spend a large portion of your time and where you will meet for breakfast the second day, and I'd say it is very easy to find. If you are really concerned, pick up one of the small campus maps they have sitting out at the beginning of the first day. But, you could always just stick with your roommate and hope they know where to go too.</p>