Kaitlyn’s Lifestyle Guest Outlooks
Kaitlyn Bell (she/her) is a Lifestyle Guest Columnist and first-year student in the ILR School. She can be reached at [email protected].
If you’ve ever been to summer camp, you haven’t — at least not until you have experienced orientation week at Cornell. Orientation week, commonly known as “O-Week” is the week before classes begin at Cornell University, something almost unique to the school. Students are expected to move in seven days before classes begin and spend the week walking record miles and doing the same events repeatedly. This for some, was a great time to explore campus, meet many people, and adapt to college life, but for others, school started with a head cold and extreme exhaustion. The perspective could be seen either way but, both can be true for one person. Regardless it’s fair to say, o-week could be shortened, and the events could be compacted into a shorter amount of time to prevent some redundancy.
Some freshmen share the sentiment that there was too much time in the day and too many random activities to do. With a full schedule of orientation events and thousands of other freshmen to meet, allocating time to do everything is overbearing. Jared Miller ’28 expressed concern over the amount of time allotted in the day and the week overall. “There was a lot of time. I always felt like there was something I should be doing but I didn’t know what.”
With every student having the ability to personalize their orientation schedules for the week this looming concern was commonly shared. It is a very real possibility that you could be a 30 minute walk away from your roommate attending a Club Fest while they are on a tour of the Botanical Gardens. The options are diverse and good experiences but are very oddly widespread.
Many universities leave students with about three to four days of move-in time to settle into their surroundings, rather than stacking event after event. This repetition can also feel like time is being taken away from important experiences before classes. Avery Morris ’28 shared her feelings more in depth regarding the events and what she took away from some. “To me, a lot of the orientation activities seemed really repetitive. I got told about the Good Samaritan law [about] 50 times.”
The repetition of on-campus information is important so freshmen know everything required of them but drilling it into students’ brains right before classes begin becomes tiring. As classes begin, more useful information will come about in a more fluid way that isn’t draining to memorize. For example, instead of being told to fear academic probation time after time once classes begin, the challenge of the course load will motivate me, and I am sure many others, to stay on top of class assignments and readings.
On the dock behind the Ithaca Farmers Market people enjoy the weather and watch the boat tours on Cayuga Lake. // Kaitlyn Bell
The transition from orientation to the first day of classes is also an uncomfortable adjustment. Going from spending time in the dining halls, speaking to new people and watching people play spikeball or volleyball to seeing every student with a heavy backpack with a nervous glance was quite overwhelming. However, having the time and opportunity to attend college-specific events, go to the Ithaca Farmers Market and swim in Ithaca’s water holes is something I will never forget. With a reduced orientation schedule I do believe I would have explored these activities to their fullest potential before classes began and Ithaca gets cold.
O-week is a term that will forever be ingrained into my memory and remembered for its 48-hour days and exciting new memories, but summer camp will never ever be the same.
Editor’s note: This piece was originally published in the September 4, 2024 print edition on the Sun.