<p>I'm from California and am flying to Pittsburgh the day before orientation begins with my brother-in-law. He's supposed to help me get situated before he leaves the next day (day of orientation). The problem is that the latest southwest flight on the 21st is at 5pm and the program says parents are excused at 'dinnertime'. He'd probably have to leave at 3 if he takes the southwest flight at 5. Should he just stay another night and leave in the next morning or can he just leave on the 21st? I guess what I'm asking is, how long will it take to get 'settled in' the first day?</p>
<p>It took me two-three hours to move into my room. OCs help carry your boxes from your car to your room so it speeds up the move in process.</p>
<p>A 5pm flight is definitely enough time, don’t worry. There is an optional ‘dinner with your parents’ thing on the first night as a way of saying goodbye to mom and dad, so you might not be able to participate in that with him, but I would say about half of the students on my floor didn’t go to dinner with their parents and just took that time to explore campus. It won’t be a problem. :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/first-year/orientation/schedule/[/url]”>http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/first-year/orientation/schedule/</a>
Note: that’s the 2010 dates-- but the events are the same every year. The 2011 is not up yet.</p>
<p>The 7 pm time is really meant to get the parents to leave! Some of them hang around and cry their bloody eyes out. The President’s afternoon speech tells the parents to just leave-- and so they set this firm time at 7 which is when you should have said goodbye and you’re expected (and of course why not?) to be at your floor meeting to meet the RA, OCs and get ready for orientation. Remotely possibly you will not even have met the roommate yet!</p>
<p>Get to the dorm by 8:30 am (if you can) get your stuff unloaded (as everyone will tell you there’s an army of students helping) into your room (it will take about 20 minutes if you’re early and much longer if you are midday and behind the long line of cars). There’s frequent shuttles to the waterfront to buy anything you didn’t want to haul or still need-- like lamps, bedding, towels, whatever-- Walmart, Target, Lowes - the works all there.</p>
<p>The day is filled with motivational “you’re-the-cream-of-the-crop” speeches (make sure you go to your college’s speech) and lots of other activities. You can set up your banking, get your computer ready to go, or do nothing of the sort-- b/c there’s plenty of time all week to do all that kind of stuff.</p>
<p>So the 7pm time was announced as a warning to lingering parents to go home.
THere are even students without parents (obviously a good chunk of the 25% INternational crowd comes alone).<br>
So don’t sweat it- kiss/hug and say goodbye.
You might even be able to join your roomie and parents for dinner.
Trust me- the food on campus is bad enough-- get one more off campus meal while you can.</p>
<p>You mentioned you’re from Cali-- you can mail all your stuff ahead of time to your SMC mailbox. You’ll get instructions about that soon. Also Bed/Bath and beyond has a pack and hold service-- but they are about 50% more pricey than the same stuff at Target and Walmart.</p>
<p>@steelers- what on earth took 2-3 hours to unload? We got S and D unloaded in 30 minutes or less. They have those big laundry bins on wheels - it’s a snap.</p>
<p>^30 minutes? Gee, you must have been really lucky! When I moved in last year, the wait in the line to get those “big laundry bins on wheels” took over an hour…not quite “a snap,” IMO!</p>
<p>We were tipped off to arrive early-- so we did and were one of the first few cars rolling up at Morewood both times.</p>
<p>I found out my roommate’s an international student, so she’s gonna be moving in earlier. So can I move in on the 20th and beat the rush since the room is already open? Or do I still have to wait?</p>