Has anyone attended an Orientation that they would care to report on? Any insights or words of wisdom?
It could be of interest to those who have not yet gone and also future Terps.
Thanks
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We participated in one of the two day orientations last month.
We thought the parent orientation was well organized and covered a lot of useful material. It moved at a good pace and filled up the whole day. I learned a lot and got answers to all the questions we had, so it was time well spent. It was also nice that they opened up one of the dining halls for lunch so we could experience UMD dining first hand.
My daughter felt that the student orientation didn’t cover as much information but she had a great time meeting with all the other students and spending the night at the dorm. Luckily I had taken a lot of notes so I was able to bring her up to speed on our drive home.
The least useful session was probably the “professor’s perspective” at the start of Day 1 before the students and parents went their separate ways. We didn’t really get much value out of that.
If anyone has specific questions I’m happy to answer.
Thanks @SoofDad for starting this thread.
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It has been a while, and it was at a different university.
However, 5 years ago we took a flight and stayed 2 nights away from home in order to attend an orientation for the university a daughter was about to attend. I was very glad that we did it. My daughter seemed to get quite a bit out of it.
One issue is that after a student graduates high school a big chunk of what they have done for 4 years just ends. The orientation that we attended was quite soon after high school graduation and well before university started in the fall. This gives the student something to look forward to, and helps them get a bit mentally prepared well in advance. It feels very real now that the student knows that they really will be here in the fall.
We were also able to learn more about the university, and make a few class adjustments (which in retrospect turns out to have been important).
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