Freshman experience; breaking the ice

Pizzagirl
Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:57:09 +0000

Is their common book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks? That is Northwestern’s common book this year.



From the posts so far, I think it’s safe to generalize that smaller private LAC’s and universities have more nurturing and lengthy orientation programs. UC Berkeley offers a one day orientation for new students and parents.



For the actual move-in date, my D’s (Wellesley) is a one-day, in-and-out, get your key and kiss the 'rents good-bye at 4 pm, whereas my S’s (Northwestern) is a full two days and appears to have a lot more bells and whistles (of course, they are also handling 4x the students at NU compared to Wellesley). NU also offers the weeklong pre-orientation trips of the kind we’ve been discussing here (wilderness, leadership, service, plus overnights sponsored by various religious groups) that Wellesley doesn’t. The actual orientation weeks of the two, however, seems to be generally the same – trips to explore the nearby cities and get-to-know-the-campus-your-dorm-and-your-advisor stuff. We shall see!