Orientation: Diverse Tedium
Sunday, October 14, 2007
By Matthew D. Guay and Ming K. Lee
Freshman orientation week has rolled around once again, and as always it offered a jumble of meetings, assemblies, and activities, whose ostensible purpose was to get the incoming class of 2011 up to speed on the academics and culture of Dartmouth College. That first week, Elevens had a fire hose of information aimed at them. Some of it was genuinely useful, particularly in aiding students to figure out freshman year academics. A vast majority of the programs scheduled were, however, complete wastes of time.
Probably the most stand-out entries in the category of unnecessary events were the numerous late-night “alternative” activities, a desperate bid by the College to keep incoming freshmen from orienting themselves to the Greek system. Notables there included “Get Ready for the Bonfire!”, “Dance In Collis,” “Friday Night Out,” and “Live From Dartmouth…It’s Saturday Night!” I can’t tell you where they were or what they did, and I doubt there are many here that could. Attendance was poor as most of the 11’s took advantage of their week without responsibilities by visiting grim fraternity basements and get a taste of Dartmouth’s authentic social life.
That sort of personal decision was the topic of one of the first “mandatory” events scheduled. Titled “The Real Buzz: The Truth and Lies About Campus Alcohol,” it saw nearly the entire class crammed into an auditorium for an hour and a half as the message of “don’t drink irresponsibly” was hammered into them with the subtlety of a blunderbuss. Compounding the tedium was the singsong voice in which the speaker rattled off his sermon, and his various attempts at showing how “hip” and “with-it” he was with wannabe-edgy statements and jokes. Tuesday night proceeded as Monday night had, completely unaltered by this assembly’s message.
Wednesday presented another block of pointless but mandatory events, including the “First Meeting of the Class of 2011” and introductions to the curriculum and computing. Your correspondents didn’t attend these, but everything we learned about them afterward confirmed what I’d known anyway; they were frivolous, and any information gathered from them could have been found in a quick glance at the Dartmouth website. That evening the class of 2011 got to meet President Wright, in what was basically an assembly line of freshmen walking up to the President, shaking his and his wife’s hands for a second or two, and then departing. On the plus side, the food served afterward was—not bad. After this, there was a lecture on the summer reading, Oil On the Brain. We didn’t attend this either, but from what we have been told it was on par with the rest of the mandatory events. To quote Melanie Pastuck, an ‘11, “The professor giving the lecture presented no alternatives to remedy the oil situation and presumptuously tried to connect infant mortality to the status of the oil economy. Even when prompted by a question from the audience, he couldn’t come up with an explanation for his data and admitted it was ‘a stretch.’”
Thursday saw a bit of a change from Wednesday’s parade of mandatory schlock. Activities during the day consisted mainly of various departmental open houses, which were informative. Friday continued much in the same manner, with some supposedly mandatory event on off-campus programs that we had never even heard of before writing this, much less attended, followed by more departmental open houses. As Friday night drew near, the College tried harder than ever to keep kids from going out, holding events from eight until midnight with the aim of sequestering ‘11’s as far from Greek houses as possible. Judging by the number of people out on Webster Ave. that night, it was less than successful.
Saturday was more or less just dead space, as ‘11’s finally started to get their bearings on campus and gain the ability to decide for themselves what they wanted to do without a pamphlet of prescheduled programs to guide them. The area near the green also started getting a bit more crowded, as news crews and activists gathered in anticipation of the upcoming debates, a situation that would only worsen in the run-up to Wednesday. Around this point, most of the class started attending these programs for better reasons; no longer interested in what might be said, students simply wanted free food. In that respect, the alumni dinner was quite a bit more successful than most of the events the administration had put on thus far. The line stretched as far as one could see, and the food was at least pretty tasty. That night the administration lined up a few events to try to keep kids away from the frats once again. There were three shows lined up. First, there was an a cappella show, not much better or worse than any of the other dozen put on during orientation week. Or so we have been reliably informed. After that there was a hypnotist show, which we actually did attend. To be honest, we came away from it less impressed than upperclassmen recollections of the show would have led us to feel. It’s funny enough to watch kids pretend to drive cars or take their shoes off or whatever else they did but overall it felt, uh, forced. After the show, the auditorium emptied almost completely, though SHEBA put on a show until about one.
At last, on Sunday morning, matriculation took place. To some people it was an important ceremonial symbol of becoming a student and maybe some other things, but for most of the class it meant, finally, protection by campus Safety and Security. Any misdeeds before that point would have been prosecuted by the Hanover Police—bad news for any student who aspired to hang out. To be fair, President Wright gave a badass speech in his office, covering such topics as being president of an Ivy League institution and slitting open dynamite charges with his homemade knife in preparation for blowing up walls of solid earth. After matriculation was more dead space, and Sunday afternoon proceeded as Saturday did. That night, the College put on an event titled “Playing the Game or Just Hooking Up: Sex on Campus.” Student reaction to this was as favorable as it was to most of the mandatory programs. To quote Mostafa Heddaya, ‘11, “I don’t really remember. He made a bunch of bad jokes….I kind of zoned out.”
On Monday, ‘11’s finally went through the process of selecting classes. First, each student met with a faculty advisor. Outcomes seem to have been mixed; some students I’ve talked to said that their advisor was helpful while others offered the opposite opinion. Later that night, the entire freshman class was corralled into Leede Arena for “Experiences,” a celebration of diversity.
Very oddly, it was hard to see, based on “Experiences,” why diversity is a good thing. Diversity of opinions is what academia and democracy thrive on. This diversity, however, is not an end in itself; the ultimate end is a better society, a better individual—and as individuals are not endogenous systems, we need exposure to different thoughts, different ideas, so we can improve ourselves. It was taken for granted that ethnic diversity is good and that we should thus embrace it without question. Intellectual diversity is part of a reason to attend Dartmouth, but, ironically, the speeches and presentations at “Experiences” were strangely uniform, lacking in diversity. The heart of diversity is each individual bringing something unique to the table, his or her own voice; instead, that night, it seemed most were bringing the same thing, expressing themselves in that sanctimonious preaching tone most of us used when writing our college application essays. “Experiences,” though, did manage to unite students of all races, genders, and political and sexual orientation in agreement with one point: Experiences is useless. The show closed with a performance by Native American drummers and a dance troupe—a performance that apparently comprised chanting the same words repeatedly as the drums are played.
As classes began, so ended a week of forgettable events and canned speeches. Those with a true passion to learn and discover opportunities throughout this campus will do so of their own volition and through the efforts of the countless student groups here. The programs put together by the administration did little to further these goals, but instead served to fill up space in student schedules and provide the incoming freshmen with the same generic words of advice and praise heard by every class for decades. n
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