What does your kid’s college do to help their incoming freshman transition? Was it effective for your child or not?
For example, was there a backpacking trip, or a club fair, or dorm meeting, or…
Flagship U has budget cuts for the Welcome Week events this year. Summer orientation so that already done before on campus. Over the years I have seen a lot of variety out there. What works depends so much on the size and nature of the school. I can’t imagine feeling like a member of a class like one did in HS so any of the rah-rah class of XXXX doesn’t work for me. Dorms have activities for residents. There are many, many interest clubs. But- so much more independence expected at this school than some. Some want “nurturing” others don’t. Size of school matters- 6,000 incoming freshmen means you will never know most of them. No need for “bonding” with trips- you meet tons of people in your dorm.
State U my kid is at has an Orientation week packed with activities. There were certain mandatory ones and lots of optional ones. Also they were put into groups based on dorms and did tours with that group, and they had activities based on major. I think it was effective.
My daughter was placed into an orientation club. She will have a writing class with her club the entire year. They had dorm activities as well as club activities during orientation, but she is hanging out with the kids from her club a lot more than anyone else a month into it. It’s a liberal arts college with an enrollment of about 2500.
My two olders now out of college did “outdoor hiking/camping/kayaking type orientations” that lasted a week. They both made a lifetime friend that week. Great way for a group of 10-20 kids to get a kick-start, get some exercise and some fresh air before cracking the books. Because of the types of orientation and the “leaders” neither of them reported any kind of alcohol “smuggling” activity and when you’re out at the wilderness there isn’t any to “buy.” They got back and classes started for both of them if I recall. I don’t recall what it cost but I do recall it was reasonable and it was honestly the best money I spent to get them launched far, far away from home. My youngest stayed close to home at a big Uni and he was totally bored through his orientation except for the 20 minutes scheduling his classes and that cost me $100 I think.
State U kid had very little. RA was meh. He was a joiner, though, so got out there and joined.
LAC kid had a good RA and a special freshman week orientation group he clicked with.
In my day, kids could go hiking or take a big city trip for a week before classes. I didn’t get to go due to $, but more fortunate friends who went had a blast and made some good friends. If the trip had been offered at my kids’ schools, I would have encouraged them to go.
When did bouncy houses become a staple at Welcome Weeks?
@TomSrOfBoston was there a bouncy house mentioned? I missed that, but my kid would totally love that school. 
Organizations all have different ways of introducing new people to the group. Sometimes these are welcoming sometimes they are hazing, sometimes they are alienating and sometimes they are empowering.
It seems like as colleges start up we are reading on CC about students whose “on-boarding” at a college has gone poorly. I am not an experienced parent, so I wanted to hear from more experienced parents about the kinds of orientation that made a difference in their kid’s college experience.
I have noticed that in the Boston area many colleges had bouncy houses at their orientation/welcome week. Thankfully there were no strong wind gusts!
Kid #2’s school does a June orientation with ice breaker activities, smaller groups that meet together the whole time, games and meals with your major kids (along with all the nuts and bolts sessions). DS met a kid at his major lunch who he hit it off with and decided to room with. He came away after 2 days feeling like he had 3 “really good friends” and a real grounding in the school. During the welcome days there was a BBQ, outings, floor meetings, other assigned group meetings, and a few other activities to get kids together and in the swing of things. There was a “scavenger hunt” for first semester classrooms and shopping trips. There was also a work study job fair and an activity/club fair. There have been activities each week here and there and lots of FB updates with goings on and things to do. There is also an optional freshman retreat next weekend.
He joined some things and stayed out of some other planned activities but is feeling really grounded with the school and other kids.
I was not a fan of the June orientation at first because of the extra plane tickets but when he came away with a great roommate and a solid friend group I decided it was the best $488 I ever spent. We actually ran into one of his friends and mom in the parking garage at move it along with other kids who he met. It was neat to have people already hailing him when he didn’t even have his room keys yet.
From what I’ve noticed as someone who has been involved (at the staff level) with orientation at several schools, there seem to be two schools of thought:
- Overnight or "traditional" summer orientation, when students come before school starts to do any required testing, registration, etc. as well as see the campus, meet people, and get familiarized with the school.
- Week of Welcome, where students are pre-registered by the school and orientation happens right before school starts but after students move in.
The school I work for currently does a kind of hybrid program; students come over the summer to do testing and registration, and then orientation is after move-in but before classes start and is more of the “fun” stuff rather than the business stuff.
If you’re interested in true “best practice,” there is a governing body called the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS standards) who set standards for different functional areas of student affairs. The actual standards you have to pay for, but you can look at some general standards here:
http://www.cas.edu/generalstandards
ETA: Best practice is highly subjective based on school size, location, and about a million other factors. What would work for Harvard would not work for a flagship state school in Texas would not work for a small private school in the Midwest.
Thankfully both my kids only had a fall orientation the week before regular classes started. We were a seven hour drive from one college and about a four hour drive from the other one and had other plans for the summer.
I believe both orientations were similar a mix of ice breaker activities, intro to clubs, testing for course levels (though some of this took place on line over the summer), intro to the city, dorm meetings. One college had small group activities the week before the regular orientation - one was a service project, one was hiking, and one was sports oriented - there may have been others. My kid was not in a hurry to leave home so he didn’t do them.
My older son (at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon had to take a required course that only SCS has that other departments joke is the “learn to take a shower course”.
The course description is actually pretty innocuous:
In any event, my son didn’t get told about showers, but the course did recognize that there were a lot of kids who might just sit in computer labs if you didn’t get them out, so some of the assignments were things like going to a local restaurant or museum, or getting a library card from the Public Library.
D’s seemed awesome to me, she got a lot of value out of some aspects, not others. She’s at a small LAC and orientation was for the 7 days leading up to classes starting.
Move in day with meetings for parents and kids, separately. Orientation “squads” of 20 or so kids (who will have first year seminar together). Dorm activities put on by RAs with ice breaking games. Ice cream, BOUNCY HOUSE FIELD DAY (there you go @TomSrOfBoston) event, a 3 day/2 night program with several different choices (canoe/hike/etc with camping options or on-campus class or in-the-community stuff). Big club fair, meetings related to respect/safety, an hour to meet with adviser and finalize schedule, a dance…all ended with convocation.
RA at dorm still has activities going and they are mandatory until this week. There was a campfire and s’mores and some more ice-breaking just the other day.
IMO it’s a bit over the top but it really does give the kids a lot of time to meet others and get comfortable with the campus community and facilities and all that, while building in a fair bit of free time to process or socialize. If the kids are eye-rolling by the end, at least they’re eye-rolling together and have had lots of opportunities to gt to know each other.
Thanks everyone.
@HisGraceFillsMe I only meant “Best Practices” is the anecdotal sense, but it would be interesting to see if there were national recommendations.
It seems like from all of your experiences there are two functions to Freshman Orientations. The first is to educate the student on the ins-and-outs of the institution (registration, health services etc). The second is to help the student feel like part of a community, or that they have a social/academic group on campus.
I think the latter is going to be really important for my kid. It sounds like state U’s mostly only really focus on the former.
My daughter’s state U had a week or more of orientation/games/activities before classes started. She elected to go on one of the outdoor adventures for 3 days before dorm move in (so she got to move in early, which was a benefit in itself) and met a few people on that trip. The others moved in on a Friday, there were activities and a football game on Sat., more activities (for both parents and students) including a country music concert. It was Labor Day weekend and so there were more things to do, and I think classes started on Wed. Quite a few activities ran for another week, even after classes started.
My other daughter goes to a private school and freshmen moved in on a Tues, and there were all kinds of things for students and a few for parents for that first T-F. Sorority rush was over the weekend, plus other activities and classes started on Monday. Each freshman had to take a one credit course and attend certain things during that first semester - concerts, athletic events, lectures, etc. They swiped their cards and got credit for it. Most students get an A, so it’s an easy A and it gets the students involved in activities.
My DD’s school had “orientation” a day during the summer, where you could talk to advisors and such.
But then the 5 days before class starts, they have Welcome week. Students taking the same freshman seminar live on the same floor of the dorm…they also do very many activities with their dorm floor. Just tons of activities…
http://welcomeweek.pages.tcnj.edu/files/2015/08/Welcome-Week-2015-Schedule.pdf
My DS and my DD both go to small LAC’s. They both arrived just a few days before school started and their orientation was filled with both practical things (placement exams, presentations on services, class registration, etc) and on fun stuff (games, socials, outings, dorm meetings, etc). Lots of opportunities to meet people before classes started. The first day had lots of activities for parents as well.
I have to say, I think I would resent a program that occurred in June requiring me to buy a plane ticket out there. Is this really common any place other than state schools where the vast majority of kids would be within a short distance?
I think it’s mostly schools that attract regionally so this isn’t an issue…though Denison (more than half not-Ohio students) does a June orientation there’s also one before classes, nominally for international students who can’t make the first.
I agree, that would bug me.