Pioneer LogLewis & Clark College’s Student-Run Newspaper

NSO for the not-so-new

September 10, 2010

by Allie Cheroutes

Hello, New Student Orientation, did ya miss me?  I’m back for orientation round two. Unfortunately, not much has changed. Don’t know anyone, couldn’t find my way to the student center if my life depended on it and I’m clutching my orientation schedule like it’s a life vest.  

At first glance transfers are indistinguishable from the masses of wide-eyed, skittish freshman because admittedly, for now, we also happen to be wide-eyed and skittish. But at the same time, we have done this before. I already logged my hours of meet-and-greet scavenger hunts and ice cream socials, just not at this particular school.  I hope I speak for all the transfers out there who felt ridiculous sitting through lectures with names like Rules of the Road, which boil down to: try not to smoke too much, try not to have sex in the showers and learning how to do your own laundry sucks. We didn’t need speakers on the ins and outs of homesickness; we needed coaching on how to get our hard earned credits to transfer and how to assimilate into the pre-settled life of an upperclassman.

I think we’re all experiencing mini identity crises. On multiple occasions I have been forced to swallow my pride and ask directions thus blowing my façade of complete confidence.

“Oh”, they always say with a little smile, “freshman?” 

“No, no” I quickly correct, “transfer.” I say it as if it were some sort of password into a secret club. But it’s true, transfer students are a little different than freshman. The distinction must be made.  We already speak the language of college, we just aren’t familiar with the Lewis & Clark dialect.   

This is a great school. We attract a lot of transfers. This year alone there are 75 of us. That’s a large enough percentage to justify having an orientation program more unique to transferring students.  We need to know the Rules of the Road too,
though we’re merging at a different on-ramp.  

In a desperate attempt to immerse myself in all things LC as soon as possible, this summer I signed up for one of the College Outdoors trips.  I felt much more oriented for this school hiking and rafting around the backwoods of Oregon than sitting in the chapel listening to Connecting With Technology.  I made closer connections to people who shared the view off the summit of Dome Rock in the skies of Marion, OR than the ones I stood in an awkward circle with and played monotonous name games during NSO.  Sitting around a campfire we could all just be people. Not divided by the labels ‘freshman’, ‘transfers’ and ‘leaders.’ We played name games because we wanted to, not because people in orange shirts told us we had to.  NSO is like the kid at the party who is trying way too hard to be liked.  He’s talking loudly non-stop and repeating himself a lot.  College Outdoors is the guy everyone really came to see. 

My advice for future years is to switch it up a little. Have trips more accessible to more students and use those as the orientation. Transfers could bond with other transfers and sophomores hiking through the woods while freshman talk about course loads together and bond over camping on the coast. Full immersion is the way to go.
At a school that can make something as gross sounding as ‘vegan cupcake’ taste good, I’m surprised they couldn’t make an orientation that was easier to swallow.