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Look at you! Quoting the website back in 2005. </p>
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As is evidenced here time and again, people don’t seem to read the website, emails, or brochures.</p>
<p>Aside from getting the gist of how UVa works, Orientation is about meeting people. Do as much of the social stuff as you can. Have fun!</p>
<p>Good lord.</p>
<p>Dean J put it best, a lot of people don’t prepare themselves so the speeches and information presentations are necessary, but not for everyone, and the most important part is to meet new people and have fun</p>
<p>LOL I wish I could have just walked out during some of the speeches … I was like, “I don’t see why some people are taking notes, it’s all available online!”</p>
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<p>My memory may be failing me but I do believe that they didn’t mention the schedule last year before we got there, which was the only reason I typed it up. Along with things to bring.</p>
<p>And I said good lord for the things we used to ask. Without shoe putting up with all of my ridiculous questions, who knows how much more stuff I would have brought. :)</p>
<p>I remember the course planning workshop and the big packet…everyone seemed so overwhelmed by it. Silly me, I knew the current COD (figuratively) cover-to-cover by the time orientation had started. Two weeks after I received my acceptance I had signed the lease on my apartment and not too much longer I made the move to C’ville. 
I, too, felt that the first day was pretty redundant – some of the people I met in my group decided to leave and we walked Downtown.</p>
<p>Although…my days at UVA certainly seem so much better now that I have repressed the long nights of reading and the all-nighters in the basement of Clemons (and pushing two chairs together to make a mock bed). It was worth it though. I transferred from a PA state school and it was basically high school +…the same memorization and regurgitation ad nauseum.</p>
<p>I really hope I can make things work so that I can return as a Grad student next year!</p>
<p>Wow, you were allowed to leave? (or you were audacious enough?) =D</p>
<p>It’s college, you can do what you want.
I know for fall orientation, many of us Brownies decided to skip a lot of the “mandatory” activities and just hang out in our cool new abode.</p>
<p>I suppose despite the lack of any sanctions enforcing attendance, at least in public we students tend to be obedient little robots anyway. Last year I attended the last regular session (K) – I don’t think anyone left (I don’t recall – I was looking everywhere else but the powerpoint slide).</p>
<p>We left later in the afternoon when we had an unofficial “break”. I think it was during the different info sessions. We made it back for this big collective meeting where the Deans were telling kids not to get their hopes up about getting into the Comm School, and where they tell all transfers to expect their GPA’s to drop 1/2 to 1pt after their first semester.</p>
<p>Ah yes, our group broke up based on which school we were in (SEAS, CLAS, etc.) I remember now – that’s how you could leave.</p>
<p>So here’s a head’s up at least for the CLAS information session I suppose: if you’re well read on degree requirements and how credits may be transferred and AP credit policy and academic probation and all that, it’s mostly a waste of time. I wish I had known that…</p>
<p>I don’t know if the information session for the e-school, nursing, etc. is any more informative</p>
<p>yeah, I brought my car so I didn’t go to anything that was not required (i.e. the speeches and everything on the second day) LOL. I remember I watched Get Smart during Orientation and found a great wings place on 29; the first night was wings and picking classes while watching the Daily Show. good times. So, I’d say my orientation was productive. ;)</p>
<p>I liked my orientation, I don’t talk to any of the people I met there, but one girl I was friends with ended up in the class I am the TA for… A cool thing about orientation was that I went to school in Fairfax before moving to Philly, and saw a girl I used to know in 2nd grade. I still see old classmates around grounds (quite a few of us ended up at UVA) and it is really fun to wave and briefly chat to them.
Fall orientation is much more useful/enjoyable.</p>
<p>Personally I just can’t see why not do most of the initial course advising remotely … I mean essentially we looked through a(n outdated) book and prepared a list of courses to be enrolled in right? And then some grad student did some sort of moderated-ISIS thing for us? Especially for OOS students the unnecessary travel can be a significant expense!</p>
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<p>Haha, I met a girl in the IRC who attended the same primary school as me – in Singapore, halfway around the world, and had the same teachers and principal (and still remembered the song lol).</p>
<p>Here’s the thing, Gal: Orientation is not mandatory, but most students find it beneficial. It is an expensive program to run and if the general feedback wasn’t positive, it would be cut. We’ve already seen a good number of examples of how students have tailored orientation to fit their needs. Some students aren’t as independent as that and need more guidance or structure in the program.</p>
<p>If you don’t see any benefit in having a few days here with Grounds to yourself, in hanging out with people who are going to be on this journey with you for the next four years, in meeting some older students who are solely here to help you with the transition, you don’t have to come.</p>
<p>Sure, there are parts that are dry, but there is social time built in to balance those sessions out. Most students have a fun and give good feedback about the experience.</p>
<p>Well why not squeeze it into Fall Orientation?</p>
<p>Personally I found orientation beneficial due to the social aspect, but even though it is not mandatory, you will be billed for orientation whether or not you decide to go, so in a way you are forced to go, because if you don’t you just give away $190 (I think that’s the amount)</p>