When I was told that as
part of Student Government I would be leading Orientation, I did not know what
to expect. I was a transfer student so I did not go through Freshman Orientation
at St. Mary. Furthermore, I was told that this year’s Freshman Orientation
would be different from any previous St. Mary Freshman Orientation. Once I
began Orientation, I was surprised how there was always something to do. During
the day, there were mostly informational sessions with fun activities mixed in
between, and at night, there was a fun socializing activity. Much of the
informational aspects of Orientation were review, but I also learned a few new
things myself. For example, I am pretty sure that I am now one of the few
upper-classman who know that the printer’s on-campus no longer print immediately
after a pressing print on the computer. Instead, a student has to put in their
student ID into the printer in order for the printer to release its queue. If I
had not been at Freshman Orientation, then I would have been very confused the
first time I went to print something at the library. As necessary as the
informational meetings are, the best part about Orientation is the fun events.
My favorite event was the field competition, when the houses competed at a variety
of mini-competitions such as egg toss and tug of war. Of course, I was disappointed
when Miller House (my Freshman group) did not win over all, but our group won
most of the events that required a good deal of athleticism. Another
Orientation event that I enjoyed was the service day. As a transfer, I was not
a part of the service day last year, so this was my first year participating
along with the entire freshman. My service job was cleaning out a flower bed
for an elderly couple who are unable to do it themselves. Admittedly, when I
first started cleaning out the flower bed, I was not very happy about the
amount of insects that called the flower bead home. However, coping with the
bugs was worth it when I saw how grateful the woman who we were helping was.
Once we finished cleaning out the flower bed, she thanked us many times and
told us that she would not have been able to get rid of the weeds if it was not
for our help. The last day of Orientation was Tuesday, the day of Matriculation.
When I was a transfer student, the Chapel was under construction, so this was
my first year seeing Matriculation in the Chapel. The Chapel is absolutely
beautiful and it is the perfect place to hold Matriculation. It was cool seeing
the freshmen who I had hung out with the last couple of days become official
St. Mary students. After Matriculation and lunch there was a serious of skits
put on by the RA’s and SGA, then a slide show of orientation. After the slide
show, it was announced that orientation was officially over.
