<p>I'm wondering what we do at Orientation. I've been told that the info for this year (and all previous years) is not and will not be available over the internet. We will only be updated at Orientation, when we'll receive the "Hitchhiker's Guide to Orientation." Anyone know, generally, what we'll be doing? What has been done in previous years?</p>
<p>There are about a zillion events that go on during Orientation, hence the need for the Hitchhiker's Guide (a small paper booklet you'll receive when you check in) and the Daily Confusion (a section which will run daily in The Tech during rush).</p>
<p>The ARC runs the official Orientation events, which mostly a) have free food and b) are mildly to extremely lame. They will probably include:
1. An opening ceremony where you'll see your whole class together for the first time and Pres. Hockfield will say something inspiring.
2. A class picture in Killian Court.
3. Talks on things like not raping people and not drinking yourself to death and respecting people from other backgrounds. Many of these talks will include lunch.
4. Playfair, a several hour event in which you will do more icebreaker games than you ever thought possible. Not recommended by me.
5. A dinner held at your temp dorm with your temp dorm's housemasters.</p>
<p>You will be put into an Orientation group of 15(?) people and an upperclassman Orientation leader, and you'll stay with this group for all of Orientation.</p>
<p>It is really important to remember that none of this is mandatory. If you don't want to go to something, you don't have to. Nobody's taking attendance.</p>
<p>There will also be lots of events for rush, which will be student-run and therefore infinitely less lame than the ARC events. It's in your best interest to go to as many different rush events as you can, so you can learn about different dorms and decide where you'd like to live.</p>
<p>There will also be organizational/academic things which need to get done: the swim test, meeting with your advisor, learning about classes (Core Blitz, Academic Fair) and extracurricular activities (Activities Midway, Athletics Midway), and registering for classes. That kind of stuff is less optional than the other ARC stuff, but it's a lot more useful, too.</p>
<p>Playfair is cool, for about the first five minutes. The next 55 minutes are torture.</p>
<p>I personally thought the talks on not raping people were more tortuous than Playfair. Basically, you watch this little play about people getting drunk and making bad decisions, which is actually kind of entertaining. At least, I thought so. Then they made us sit around with our groups and discuss it. Only, you know, there...wasn't much to discuss. Basically my leader was like "so, does anyone have any comments?" which no one did, so we had to listen to a couple of upperclassmen rattle off MIT drinking statistics for the next hour and a half.</p>
<p>Go to the Rush events, and the useful things (that will help you pick classes or give you a chance to meet people in clubs you're interested in), and to Hockfield's speech (cuz you know, she's the president. And she talks about how cool you are. I don't know, I liked it). But I found that a lot of the activities that involved "discussing (blank) with your orientation group" were a waste of time. They'll tell you about how you should talk to your roommate when problems arise. Which you should. But you could probably guess that without sitting around and having awkward, forced conversations with upperclassmen for hours at a time. Just my two cents. =)</p>
<p>Thanks for the detailed responses. I have a few questions:
1. Who arranges the non-ARC events? Are they just involved students or clubs?
2. When we go to events, do we have to have our orientation group with us? What exactly do we do in our orientation group?
3. Do you actually meet people in Playfair? I know the general concensus is that the activity is boring and torturous, but is there any value?
4. Are there any fun activities at orientation? What should we look out for?
5. This is somewhat off the point of this discussion, but why does the Orientation Dept. consider the release of the prior years' orientation guides to be a "safety hazzard"?</p>
<p>The non-ARC events are organized by different groups -- the rush events are organized by individual dorms and orchestrated by [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/dormcon/%5DDormcon%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/dormcon/]Dormcon[/url</a>], the activities midway is organized by the [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/asa/www/%5DASA%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/asa/www/]ASA[/url</a>], and the athletics fair is organized by [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/athletics/www%5DDAPER%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/athletics/www]DAPER[/url</a>]. Dormcon and ASA are student-run, but that doesn't imply that the events are disorganized or anything -- the same events are run every year, and extensive planning for the events has already begun.</p>
<p>The students who run events at Orientation are generally either people who stayed here over the summer or people who got an early return specifically to help out with some Orientation or rush event. (Upperclassmen can't move back into their rooms until the weekend before Reg Day, so anybody who's around during Orientation is either an early return or stayed over the summer.)</p>
<p>You will go with your orientation group to the ARC-run events (the rape talk, the alcohol talk, the diversity talk, dinner with the housemasters, dinner with the faculty, etc) but not to things like the Activities Midway or the meeting with your advisor. Like Laura said, in your orientation group you will mostly sit around and have awkward discussions.</p>
<p>If you go to Playfair, you will "meet" everyone in your class, or close to it. One of the things they do is have you get in two big concentric circles and rotate in opposite directions; you say "Hi, my name is (whatever)" to all of the people in the other circle. You will not remember any of these names afterward. If you like icebreaker games, then you will like Playfair. My own personal hell would be composed entirely of icebreaker games, but maybe that's just me.</p>
<p>I'm not sure why they don't make information for previous years available over the internet. I mean, there's nothing really scintillating about any of the information.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You will go with your orientation group to the ARC-run events (the rape talk, the alcohol talk, the diversity talk, dinner with the housemasters, dinner with the faculty, etc)
[/quote]
But this is what you meant could be skipped because "nobody takes attendance", right? (please say yes)</p>
<p>The "point" of Playfair is to meet everyone in your class within an hour. Clearly this does not make sense. Basically they have you run around in circles getting into groups of people who have the same eye color or birthday month as you, which, like I said, is actually kind of fun for about five minutes. Then you realize how pointless it really is. I mean, I remember exactly one person I "met" at Playfair- she ended up living across the hall from me and when I saw her in the dorm for the first time all I knew was that she looked familiar and that I was slightly suspicious that she was born in the same month as me. (Which was actually true.) But I didn't even remember her name. That should show you exactly how useful Playfair is.</p>
<p>As for me, after I lived the torture of the rape/alcohol talk, I definitely skipped the diversity talk, and nothing horrible happened to me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I definitely skipped the diversity talk, and nothing horrible happened to me.
[/quote]
tut, tut. If we catch you discriminating against people who hate rutabagas, we'll know why. ;)</p>
<p>Really, everything during orientation is optional. </p>
<p>It's probably a good idea to do the useful things -- visit the activities fair, meet with your advisor (duh), eat free food and check out the dorms during rush -- but that's all the stuff that you do on your own or with a group of friends. I will personally go on the record advocating skipping all the events where you're herded like a cow, unless you feel the need to learn how to drink responsibly or how not to rape people.</p>
<p>You'll probably hear a lot of upperclassmen tell you not to go to the dumb events. Freshmen tend to still be in the mindset during orientation that they have to go to everything on their schedules -- that maybe the principal will call their mom if they don't go to the alcohol talk and pinky-swear not to get drunk underage -- but upperclassmen tend to find most of the ARC-sponsored events witheringly stupid.</p>
<p>Besides, they don't actually teach you to drink responsibly, they just tell you...not to drink. I personally think that if they gave you real advice about how to take care of friends who've had too much, that would actually be useful, but then they'd probably get sued for "encouraging" underage drinking or something, so eh.</p>
<p>Basically, what Mollie said.</p>
<p>I hope I meet you folks at Orientation. With these internet such and suches, you sort of think of a face, and then see if it's right. Y'know?</p>
<p>In its defense, Playfair isn't for introducing yourself to the effect of remembering names, its purpose is exactly what it claims: it's an icebreaker for the year - the point is just to get the people in the class comfortable with each other</p>
<p>In defense of the rape event, its mostly not about how not to rape people but about how not to be raped</p>
<p>The events on academic honesty are a little annoying, but probably a good idea, so that at least everybody is on the same page</p>
<p>@laura: the message not to drink is a good message and it's really the only message, even if it is a fruitless endeavour to endorse it at the level of a panel discussion</p>
<p>@lowofo: I'll be at a few booths of the activities fair and rushing for Baker during orientation, I'm the guy who's RIGHT BEHIND YOU (bOo!)</p>
<p>Thanks for all the honest recommendations and answers.</p>
<p>Just so everyone here, incoming frosh and upperclassmen alike, is aware...they got rid of Playfair this year. Finally.</p>
<p>Oh man, rock out! Lucky you guys.</p>
<p>...but with what are they replacing it?</p>
<p>I just want to be the one person who had a good thing to say about Playfair (even if it is gone). I personally did not like it and think its stupid, but I must say that I was sexiled that night because my roommate "met" someone at Playfair. He enjoyed it</p>
<p>No way. That's absurd.</p>
<p>I'm so sorry for you, mitsoph.</p>
<p>when does the actual "orientation" start? monday 28th? or tuesday?</p>
<p>"Meeting" at Playfair is absurd? I know a prefrosh that "met" someone at CPW lol.</p>
<p>CPW is reasonable; after you go to Playfair you'll appreciate why it's absurd (you might be attracted to somebody and hit it off, but oops 5 seconds later you are force separated :d)</p>