<p>I thought Orientation was alright.</p>
<p>I got there at around 1:00 pm Wednesday. Because the BUWA didn't begin until 3, the people who came early played some "ice breaker" games. We also were able to get a Guest BU ID card, a key to our dorm room and we received our schedule for the whole orientation. At 3, we went and took the BUWA. You get a passage to read and you need to critique that passage and use a couple quotes from the text (easier than it sounds-almost everyone got WR 100, about 95%). The BUWA lasts about an hour. Later, at 7:00 that evening, you are presented with 7 places (atleast that's how many we got) you want to go to for the night (like Fanueil Hall, North End, etc.) I chose the Fanueil Hall/Quincy Market group and it wasn't too bad. You obviously ride the T down there and then basically chill in that area until 10:00pm, when you go back to the dorms at West Campus via the T. </p>
<p>Thursday was the busy day. I woke up at 6:45 since the big welcoming address at Agganis Arena (remember, now everybody attending the orientation is there). At the end of this welcoming, you go into your group (on your schedle, it tells you what group you are in). The group is led by a Student Advisor (SA), who is an upperclassmen and resemble "peer leadership/counseling" you may have had in high school. Their job is to help you get acquainted with the beginning of college life. I am in COM, so we walked to COM (rather, I lost the group and walked down to COM with some kids I knew going to CAS). At COM, we took our language placement test (at COM, you take the test there, not at home). If your results are above a certain score, you are exempt from taking language in college (dunno how I was able to do that lol). After the placement test, you head over to the School of Law Auditoruim, where they present Student Affair Sowcases (talk to you about where to seek help if you need it). Lunch was next - you get a paper-bag lunch, but they do give u all the Pepsi you want :-D. During/after lunch, we took a group picture (same groups as mentioned before...around 15 people in mine), which appear on the slide show before we leave orientation. </p>
<p>At 1:00 pm, we started planning our schedules online. If you are in COM, they give you your discussion group for COM 101, so be ready to have a Plan B if you've already made your schedule). Also, for the writing classes (mainly WR 100), each class is a different topic, so be careful what you choose. The academic advisors there give you a book explaining each WR class. We would officially register online later that day, at around 6:30. I know some of the other schools had longer processes for this, but it seemed very easy and quick at COM. We show the academic advisors our planned scedule and when they come to your screen and OK it (they check class level, how far you would have to go from class to class, timing, etc.), you can officailly register.</p>
<p>Between our planning/registering period (this is from 3:30-6:30), we went to a one-hour assembly about student safety and student responsibilities, which wasn't all too bad (wait till the guy talks about fake ID's lol...that's all I'm saying). When that was done, there was an information fair for us, followed by a BBQ dinner. Obviously when this was over at 6:30, we went back to register for our classes (the paregraph before this one).</p>
<p>Thursday night, the SA's performed a skit/story about getting used to BU and all the opportunities open to you. It had some good moments. After the skit, we all get a free T-Shirt and they have some activities for us if we wanted to see/do them (comedy act, DDR, etc.)</p>
<p>Friday wasn't really that big a day. Of course, we had to wake up early again to clean our our rooms and return out Guest ID Card ($25 if u lose it) and key ($100 if you lose it). At around 8:00, we went to BU Central and got our ID card pics taken. Between that and 12:15, there really isn't much to do. I want to Barnes and Noble and bought a couple things, got a bank account and since a few of the other schools were still registering, I went to one of the assemblies mostly for parents, but student could go too. Finally, the Dean of Students gives a big welcome to the Class of 2010 with a speech and a slide show. When you're leaving, the SA's give u candy :-D and wish you good luck.</p>
<p>Some notes/things to expect:
-Most of the people attending orientation come Thursday. I think we had a little over 200 on Wednesday, and 600+ on Thurs-Fri.
-CAS easily has the most students there. I think we had 65 at COM, and CAS had atleast 2 or 3 times more students
-Bring a couple of "planned schedules" to the orientation. It makes the process a lot easier and will help you not get locked out of classes (if only a few spots are left). Again, at COM we used computers the whole time and it was easy, but things were different at the other schools (CAS made a huge prodction out of it lol).
- Feel free to ask anything, because chances are the people here (adademic advisors, student advisors, etc.) know the answer.</p>