<ol>
<li><p>How early should I arrive? As you may know, I'm living in a mudge quad with bunk beds. Therefore I want to get there early and choose <em>wisely</em> what I want.</p></li>
<li><p>If I do get the choice, should I pick top bunk or bottom bunk.</p></li>
<li><p>Are all of the Orientation events mandatory? I'm pretty reserved, and the idea of playfair kind of makes me nervous.</p></li>
<li><p>Is the week fun? (No one can believe that I have a week for orientation. They all go for like, a day).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Any other advice about orientation is very welcome.</p>
<p>I’m going to have to skip your first 2 questions, since I lived in Morewood and my situation is different, but…</p>
<p>3) No, not all Orientation events are mandatory. There are some I definitely wouldn’t skip, but if you have to go to yet another lecture that sounds really boring, and you don’t want to? Just skip it. If you aren’t super outgoing and social, orientation can start to get really tiring! It’s definitely fine if you just want to chill out for a while. That said, I personally didn’t find Playfair tooo terrible, and I’m not super outgoing either. I would personally recommend you give it a try. That’s the kind of event that I think you shouldn’t skip, IMO.</p>
<p>4) Yes, the week is lots of fun! Some of the activities are better than others, but enjoy it for what it’s worth - it’s likely the first and last time you’ll be able to just hang out and have fun whilst at CMU. Not to say that the workload is so crushing that you never have fun, but during Orientation you really have nothing at all hanging over your head, no HW or grades or tests to worry about - it’s a great time. The fact that CMU has a whole week of orientation is one thing that makes us so much more awesome that other schools In all seriousness, though, I do think the week-long orientation is a special part of the CMU freshman experience.</p>
<p>Hmm…no other advice off the top of my head right now, but I may be back.</p>
<p>do NOT skip playfair. The first rule of playfair is that you don’t talk about what it is, so good luck getting people to tell you about it (unless other previous freshmen on this board feel like spoiling it.) It’s basically a huge icebreaker.</p>
<p>Don’t skip house wars, your class talk, convocation, the Mentalist, the sex skit (it’s amazing), or any of your floor events/events with your OCs during the day. Everything else, if you’re too tired… go ahead and skip. </p>
<p>As for getting the best bed, show up promptly at 7:30 or 8 AM (as early as humanly possible). I got the last bed in my quad and I showed up at nine. Pick the bottom bunk if you can, unless you know your roommates are heavy/extremely tall/will have a hard time sleeping in the top bunk. Keep in mind also that the beds don’t come bunked, so you may want to talk with your roommates about what you want to do there. They might not want to bunk, and if you’re outnumbered, you’re gonna have to give in. </p>
<p>Orientation, whether awesome or nightmarish, will be a week you’ll remember. I am usually not a very peppy icebreaker-y kind of person, but I had tons of fun and met some friends who are even today my best buddies.</p>
<p>As an orientation counselor, it makes me sad when people tend to blow off scheduled Orientation Week events. Many people worked really hard to put the week together and there’s a lot of good information and fun times that are scheduled. </p>
<p>That being said, we realize that it’s impossible to force students to go. However, they should at least be open about it.</p>
<p>I agree that a lot of the major events like Playfair take serious time and dedication – and definitely don’t skip them. It would be awful to do so. But I will still assert that there are an awful lot of cheesy events that, while well intentioned, rarely get executed well. (I’ve noticed in particular that both last year and the year before, the first night event across the dorms at orientation was really poorly organized, and it seems like a large number of students skipped out to go hang out with their new friends/slink off to the frats and drink/etc.) </p>
<p>Events like library tours, ‘How Do You Fit Into A New Community,’ the inevitable ‘Under the Influence’ talk, ‘Green Practices’ etc really aren’t necessary to drag yourself out of bed for. Not saying that alcohol education isn’t important, but CMU does a really bad job of presenting information that is useful or novel vs. information that kids have heard a thousand times before. And unless you live under a rock, I’m hoping you know how to use a library already.</p>
<p>I skipped a couple of mornings’ worth of events and went instead to learn how to use the bus system with my newfound friends. We got bagels and had a good time of things. I think that was far more worthwhile than the morning events we missed.</p>
In all seriousness, though, I do think the week-long orientation is a special part of the CMU freshman experience.</p>