Freshman Orientation at the University of South Carolina is exciting and nerve-racking all at the same time. You’ve just wrapped up senior year, your friends are throwing graduation parties left and right, and you’re being showered with gifts from relatives you didn’t even know you had. It almost seems, and perhaps may be for some of y’all, too overwhelming. Well get ready because you don’t know even know the half of it. These are the 10 things I wish I knew before orientation at USC!
For those of you who are familiar with the campus, walking from Patterson to Russell is no big deal. However, making the trek from Patterson to Darla…well that’s a different story. It’s just short of a mile, but remember take into account the hot boiling sun that’s 95+ degrees on your back the entire time and the 100% humidity. You’re at the gates of Southern hell.
Oh, and don’t let me forget about the hills, the insane inclines and endless steps that you must conquer on your long journey to and from the buildings. I feel as though the email headers announcing “New Student Orientation” should be replaced with “Freshman Conditioning Boot Camp.” We all know Freshman Orientation was just a trial run to see if we could make it this fall. Just know that the calves of steel you are building are totally worth it!
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “first impressions are everything.” Ahh so much truth lies within that statement. First impressions are everything, yes, but how are you supposed to look cute when you’re sweating buckets and have pit stains ?? Bless the hearts of all the students who went to orientation this summer. The amount of sweating we all had to endure was inevitable. Actually, bless the hearts of all the girls whose makeup was dripping down their faces and especially the eyeliner that smudged. I don’t care how waterproof or long-lasting the makeup promised to be, it’s no match for the South Carolina heat.
So I had the bright idea that I would go for the athleisure casual, cute look. It’s the “I just threw this together” but in reality I spent 30 minutes picking it out. I wore my cute Lululemon black athletic leggings (mistake #1 because it’s 100 degrees outside) with my WHITE Vineyard Vines t-shirt with the pink whale. The shirt just so happened to match my Nike Freeruns – quite perfectly if I might add. Yes, I may be a little extra. To say I was comfy would be an understatement. I may have been comfy – in the AIR CONDITIONED CAR – but as soon as I got out it was only downhill from there. Sweat was everywhere! It was bad. Thank goodness I had used my Old Spice deodorant that morning. Also, with the white shirt there was no hiding the pit stains.
I should have brought my mom. I should have brought my mom. Why did I not bring my mother! So if you’re like me and didn’t “add a guest” and just got dropped off at the check-in, then you can relate to this pretty easily. Remember every time we had to sit in an auditorium or classroom to hear some presentation about basically everything related to USC? Also, remember how you lowkey dozed off or you walked out of the 2 hour presentation not knowing what it was even about? Yeah, we got bombarded with so much information that we still have little to no idea what to do/get/know before school starts in the fall.
I can say with great pride that we all know what to do for PARK – ING, PARK – ING, PARK – ING *inside joke* (sorry you won’t get this unless you were there). I’m an adult and pretty independent, but when it comes to the info on paying tuition and setting up payment options, your mom needs to be there.
Instead do it at orientation in your free time. This is the one time procrastination will reward you. They will give you a course catalog with the core classes you can use when making your schedule which is so helpful because each has a lovely paragraph description.
So don’t waste your time before orientation (like me at 1 am the morning of) picking out random classes that look cool or that you just need to take. Just wait! Also, since I’m in the Capstone program I got to hear about the themed English 102 classes and even got…you’ll never guess…a CATALOG which told me more about each of the courses. So, instead of just taking the regular ENGL 102, I am taking a super fun “Make(ing) America Great Again?” themed course that I heard about at orientation. How awesome is that?!
You can’t make your schedule until you are advised at orientation, so the longer you wait the faster all of the good classes are gone and all you will be left with are 8 am’s. Fortunately, my earliest class is at 9:40 on MWF, but the only class I was not able to get because it was full was the Capstone Business University 101.
I was just kind of standing there in the check-in line all alone. It’s not like I had my Mom to converse with or anything. There was just an awkward silence and people in the line were, for the most part, keeping to themselves or just talking to the people they brought with them to orientation. Well, my thought process was to just go for it and be bright and bubbly.
I mean, don’t be obnoxious and talk non-stop, but don’t be a wallflower either. So, as I was standing in line I simply turned around to the two guys behind me and said “Hey, where are y’all from?” Turns out they go to the same school as one of my childhood best friends – what a small world! We talked about our majors and why we picked USC, and just some other small talk.
Conversation starters at Orientation:
– Where are you from?
– Major/Minor
– Why USC?
And for us girls, I kid you not when I say this was how I met some of my best friends:
– “omg your highlighter is quality”
– cute outfit / I like your shirt
Perhaps you’re thinking, “I’m not social” or “I wasn’t popular in high school” well guess what? You are NOT in high school anymore. College is a clean slate, a fresh start, the beginning of the best four years of your life. No one cares who you were or what you did in high school. Everyone is starting over and it’s your life so live it the way YOU want to!
This seems like the obvious, but perhaps you’re like me and you changed your major at orientation. I went from IB to Business Economics with a Political Science minor. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought. All I had to do was fill out a worksheet and tell my advisor. Now, if you want to change your major outside of the college you applied for, that’s a little trickier.
The group chats do not do it justice. While there’s barely 100 people in the group chat, you think it’s safe to assume that about half, maybe three fourths of them will show up to your orientation. Then BAM! You go to orientation and HUNDREDS of people are there. HUNDREDS. You are completely overwhelmed by the amount of people and then remember, that’s only part of the freshman class. There are going to be thousands of people at school. How will you not get lost in the sea of college students?
There are lots of presentations and lectures on what college is going to be like and what to expect, but nothing really prepares you for that moment. That big moment when you realize it’s finally happening. You’re going away to college and you’re a few months away from being a completely independent adult. You’re going to have to get yourself up, haul it to class, pay attention, and pursue a path. You realize in that moment that it’s gonna be hella stressful and a lot of hard work, but you know that it’s going to be an amazing four years that will change your life.
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