When You Realize there’s No A/C in the Dorms, You’ve Officially Entered Orientation

Welcome home, well, more like a 4ft x 6ft cubicle that will house you and your roommate for the next year, but it’ll be the closest thing to home. Welcome to your new world; a world that is filled with new people, new classes, a new life, and a lot of new women J.  Before you can officially become a college kid, you have to take the mandatory two day tutorial that teaches you the in’s and out’s of the college life, and makes you realize just how small a dorm room is. For many, orientation is the place where it first hits you; I’m going to college.

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought about orientation what so ever. I didn’t even remember I was going to orientation till my Mom asked if I was packed the day before. I just blew her off and told her I was packed, but I hadn’t even looked at the packing list. It wasn’t until midnight that I decided to start packing, which really means it wasn’t until 12:30 am that I actually started packing, and so it really wasn’t until 1 am that I realized that I didn’t have anything I needed. So it wasn’t until 1:30 am that I went out to Meijer to get everything I needed. I wound up not going to bed until 2:30 am, and than had to wake up at 4:30 am for my flight; life is good.

The flight sucked. Nobody likes a 6:30 am flight to begin with, but usually you can deal with it if you’re heading to Florida on vacation. That wasn’t the case for me, I was getting on a plane to spend three days doing stupid mixer games and getting to live in a crappy dorm with no air conditioning.

It took me the entire plane ride and a solid two hour nap to get over my grumpiness, but once I got off the plane was low key excited to start my orientation, and of course a little bit nervous too.

When we got to the school, my Mom decided to act like the ultimate Jewish mother, and take pictures of literally everything. I’m not kidding you; she took pictures of the buildings, toilets, girls, etc. As soon as I could, I distanced myself from my parents and went to check into the dorm room where I’d be staying in for two nights. On the packing list they said to bring a fan, but they didn’t mention it would be 100 freaking degrees in the dorm and make you feel like you were in the Sahara Desert. I walked into the dorm and I felt like I was going to sweat to death, and I already have a problem with perspiration. This was going to be a long two days I thought to myself, and it hadn’t even begun yet.

After checking into my room, getting my things settled, and getting my mind ready for what was about to be two crazy days, I officially entered orientation. To say it was kind of scary would be a lie; it was very scary. Starting over isn’t easy for anyone, especially when you’ve become very close with your friends from high school. But immediately I started meeting people from all over the country, and everyone seemed cool and friendly. I think the weirdest part of meeting new people is telling them where I’m from, because no one’s been there, and they don’t realize how dope the 614 is.

After we had all settled in, the dean of students introduced us to the school and gave us an idea of all the things we’d be doing. The whole time this was going on, I couldn’t help but think to myself that I hadn’t seen any hot girls yet. I mean, I know it had only been 20 minutes, but still this wasn’t something I was expecting. I would be lying to you if I didn’t admit that the “hotness” factor of the girls I saw on my campus tour was a prime decision in my college selection process. Was this a sign of things to come?

Once the dean was done speaking, we got into groups and introduced ourselves to even more people. Finally, once we had gotten into large enough groups, we journeyed off into the city and got to meet the place we’re going to be calling home for the next four years.

While doing this activity, I made it my goal to sound as hipster as possible. Turns out, apparently you have to have a wallet that says “bad motherfu*ker” on it to be a hipster. That was the end of my attempt to be a hipster, but the activity was actually a lot of fun. Being social and meeting new people is actually a dope thing to do if everyone’s down to open up to other people.

The rest of the day we did more activities to get to know each other. After our last activity, we got to hang out the rest of the night in the dorm and chill with everyone. I knew this would be the best part of the day, simply because I went to Jew Camp for so many years and that was always the best time to chill, meet girls, get to know girls, and the rest is history. I probably got three hours of sleep that night, and lost five pounds of water weight because it was so hot in the basement of the dorm, but getting to know people in “real talk,” and not through mixers is a hell of a lot better and cooler if you ask me.

The next day was just as intensive as the first day. I made my schedule for next year, got to meet one of the seven thousand deans at the school, and got an idea of what my school life would be like. College schedules are probably the best part of getting a higher education (apologies to all the people out there with a higher education that want to kill me at this moment). Not having a class till noon is almost as exciting as the first time a fat kid gets his mouth on a Twinkie; it’s such a pleasure to the mind, that your brain has it’s own orgasm (all the fat kids out there don’t try and run from this, you know it’s true).

Finally, we had the “talk.” The talk that everyone knows is coming and doesn’t take seriously because it’s college, and we all think that part of the tuition our parents are paying for is the beer we’re going to drink, and the 15 pounds we’re going to gain. When we walked in there, they set up the stage to make it look like there was a party going down. The dean narrated the classic story of two girls going to a party alone, drinking way too much of some punch drink that probably has something bad in it, separating from each other, and winding up getting in a fight with five really really really big dudes who I wouldn’t wanna mess with, let alone two drunk girls. The whole time this was going down, I couldn’t help but notice the pong game happening in the background, and how bad they sucked. I would’ve schooled them if I was on the table, but that’s for another blog.

After we got the talk about partying, another dean talked to us about the beloved Fake IDs. After a 30-minute speech about not using fake ids, he took a huge shopping bag and dumped about 500 fake ids onto the floor. I won’t lie, I started paying attention to the speech again when I saw those puppies fly onto the floor. It was truly a glorious site to see, and one I’ll never forget. I know there was a Chip I.T. in there…

After two days full of activities, meeting new people, and beginning to understand the life of a college kid, orientation was coming to a close. But before we could officially end orientation, we had one final program.

To wrap up orientation, there was a final video that showed the parents everything we did in those two days. It had pictures and videos of kids talking about their favorite part of orientation. I had met the video guy during orientation and got to know him a little bit. When he was going around video taping stuff, he asked me to talk about my favorite part of orientation. I told him my favorite part of orientation of course, was when the dean threw out 500 fake id’s onto the ground and left them there during the presentation. And than when we left, no one ever picked them up! I told him I was kidding, and he said he would cut that part out of the video. I than gave him a thoughtful, smart-ass answer about how orientation is a great way to get to know people, and etc.

So now I’m sitting in between my parents watching this video. I’m looking at all these funny pictures, when all of the sudden I show up on the video. I had a pretty good idea that I was going to be in the video, but what I was told was going to be in the video, and what was actually in the video were two very different stories. When it cuts to me, there I am looking like a goofy s.o.b, and the only thing that comes out of mouth is this, “my favorite part of orientation was when the dean dropped like 500 fake ids onto the ground…and he never picked them up.” That was it. All I could think to myself was, “Fu*k.”

Orientation, although long and tiring, was a great wake up call. I know understand that I’m actually going to have to study in college, do my own laundry, and attempt to not gain weight. Even though I was hit with some very hard truths, to tell you I’m excited for college would be I lie; I am so excited to begin a new life, meet even more people, and begin my career as a journalist. Yes it was long, sometimes tedious, and made me realize that I will not get very much sleep in college, it also showed me the freedom and pleasures you get of being a college student. T-minus one month till I’m a college boy, and I can’t wait for it all to begin. Enjoy your last few weeks of summer, and prepare yourself for the greatest four years of your life.

Yours Truly,

Chip I.T.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, are deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure”