<p>My orientation is coming up in 4 days, so, 101 people + current students, did anyone actually find a need for a laptop at orientation? I heard some counselors wouldn't even let you use it.</p>
<p>Also, so sign up is at 9am, is is possible to show up a little late/not at all and sign up by yourselves? Were the counselors actually useful? How bad was the wait to sign up?</p>
<p>And, blankets, Y/N? I don't want to take up room (literally takes up the same amount of room as all my other stuff put together), but I don't want to be cold.</p>
<p>You can use it. However, you can't use it in the rooms where the signups take place because there's no wireless there. Thus, you need to either ethernet port it in your own room or use a lounge wireless. Either way, most counselors won't help you if choose to do it on your own and something goes wrong.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my roommate signed up by himself in our room and had his classes by 9:00:30 am (Signups start at 9:00:00 am).</p>
<p>Yes counselors are very useful. For each orientation group (8 people), everyone is signed up within the first 8 or so minutes.</p>
<p>Blankets there are ok. If you can suck it up, do it. If not, bring a blanket.</p>
<p>A laptop is pretty useful for the day before sign-ups when everyone is planning out their class schedule. If you don't bring a laptop you'll have to use one in the computer lab, which usually involves a waiting list, so I would bring one if you have one. On the actually sign-up day there isn't a huge need for laptops (my orientation counselor had two for seven people).</p>
<p>My room wasn't even cold so I barely used the blankets. I don't know about other rooms though.</p>
<p>Bring the blanket!!! the room was really cold during midnight, well around 5am I guess since we went to bed at 4am... laptop is useful planning out classes but bring ethernet cable or if you are a really really nice person you can bring a router so ppl live around you can get wireless in their rooms... btw I suggest you plan your classes before you go since a lot of ppl will be on bruinwalk and it'll take forever to load up pages to learn about the professors... I don't see any problems with signing up with your counselor because you'll be in groups of 8-9 and most counselors have 2 computers and some have 3 computers to use... I don't see any big problems with getting into classes since most of the classes are open, sign up by yourself might be a hassel since a couple ppl in my group had little problems with signing up here and there like you can't put in the units or they'll gave you an error and stuff like that... and I doubt your counselor can help you since you are not even in his/her room lol</p>
<p>I brought a laptop, mainly because I'm taking summer school and one of my classes is online. I took it because someone on this site recommended taking one. I loved having my laptop for personal reasons, but the only downside is that you can't get wireless in the rooms we stay in. However there are wireless lounges on every floor which can actually turn intoa pretty social place (and if you're looking for a quieter workplace I suggest the study room on the first floor instead of a floor lounge). As for orientation, the person on the site said it made it easier to sign up for classes. Not true. You have to sign up with your orientation counselor in their room, they usually have 8 kids and two comps and you draw a number out of a hat. It went by really quickly and in my group only two kids were waitlisted (for a Spanish class and a Japanese class I believe). The main orientation use was finding classes, I know they want you to go in the room with papers of all available classes up or to the lab but I love the class planner. I had one tab the class planner and the other the schedule of classes on the registrar's page. I heard the computer lab had a reeeeally long waitlist and the room with papers gave everyone a headache.</p>
<p>Also, people seemed worried about safety. I didn't have any problems, I don't see how a laptop gets stolen at orientation to be honest. My roomie was never in the room, my bathroom sharers never came in my room, and I was always there when there were people in my room. I really didn't have any security issues leaving my laptop in my room at all.</p>
<p>So basically, it is helpful to bring a laptop.</p>
<p>Sorry, im a litte confused with the laptop thing. Do we schedule our classes whilst sitting next to the counselors... and do we also have the option of scheduling ourselves individually? Also, did a lot of people go on BruinWalk to find out about professors and did the student mentors say any good/bad things about certain professors? (ie. whom to avoid, etc.) ?</p>
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My roomie was never in the room, my bathroom sharers never came in my room, and I was always there when there were people in my room.
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my bathroom sharer actually slept over in my triple when one of the guys went to slumber party overnight, but I highly doubt anyone had the time and effort to steal laptop, no one wants to be kicked out before they actually go to UCLA right :)
Bruinwalk is a good site but not all professors are on there, there is various sites you can go to, I seen ppl use ratemyteacher.com and my friend uses teacher ratings on myspace because he doesn't trust bruinwalk with his UCLA id, but I think overall bruinwalk is the best to use but i had really hard time connecting to it during the 2nd day when EVERYONE is planning out their schedules...
and you'll have a lot of free time, well first day is pretty planned out until after caberet(I think thats how you spell that, don't skip that it is VERY good) and if you got a 5 or 4 on bc calc then you have 2 hours during math placement, 2nd day is almost total free time after the morning session with 2 counselor appointments you'll have to go to, after that you are free until carpe(if you go wear running shoes you'll need it)</p>
<p>we schedule the classes in our orientation counselor's room. i suppose you could schedule it by yourself if you want. my oc had 2 laptops. so it went pretty fast</p>
<p>on the 2nd day, it's basically all free time. there are a lot of lectures that you can attend for your major, or like law/business. there are also workshops on what to bring for your res life or study tips. you dont have to go these lectures, and can instead hang out or sleep.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses, guys. were there any parties? lol. just kidding. Were the rooms doubles/triples or it varied? Also, can we go to Westwood Village or is going off campus prohibited? (during free time, that is).</p>
<p>apparently on the last night, a bunch of summer school students came to our dorms to invite ppl to parties-which isnt allowed.
the rooms were doubles and triples.
and yeah, i went to Westwood a couple of times.
some people even went to watch Harry Potter, so I heard.</p>
<p>I had a double but the two girls from my school had triples. I don't know about parties, but my floor (4th floor) every night a bunch of people just hung out in the hall talking and someone had an ipod and speakers. Heading down to Westdood was fun, it's def. not prohibited though they really don't want anyone walking around by themselves and they really stress the campus escort service.</p>
<p>As far as free time, actual free time is more if you're not taking a placement exam. Some of the events actually go pretty late (but I sleep at 9:30 so technically everything was late to me haha). The workshops the second day, though encouraged, are not mandatory. That and the oc's are pretty lax about missing stuff. I was exhausted the first day because my roomie was terrible and kept waking me up so I actually fell asleep during lunch and missed out on two speeches the first day. Luckily I was up in time to make it to my math test though! ^_^</p>
a bunch of summer school students came to our dorms to invite ppl to parties-which isnt allowed.
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HA this is funny. No parties go on in the dorms - you have yet to see what a real party is. I remember orientation one year, 20 people hung out in a room with mini iPod speakers, drank cider, and they called that a party. :D</p>
<p>Yeah there was an Ipod set up with speakers one of the nights on 4th floor and people were dancing in one of the rooms with other people in the halls hangin out. Only got around 4 hours of sleep each night so it left me pretty tired... slept 16 hours the first night home.
As for the laptops it is convenient to have to plan classes. You need to find a schedule that works and if you don't get to the computer labs at the right time you have to wait. With a laptop you can do it whenever and not stress about getting it done fast. For enrollment and everything else there is no need for a laptop.</p>
<p>As for missing stuff our OC threatened to postpone our enrollment and give us last choice if we missed anything... so I guess it just depends on which OC you get as to whether or not they will care if you miss lectures.</p>
<p>well OCs don't go to most of the stuff on second day except the meeting with your major counselor I think after that they'll be busy with interviews and you have a lot of free time</p>