As most college students might know, orientation is not the most exciting or anticipated event for incoming first-years.
Personally, I did not meet a single first-year that was ecstatic about the overwhelming number of mandatory lectures and information sessions listed on the orientation schedule. The transition to college was already daunting, and the addition of necessary-but-mundane talks were not at the forefront of the “fun” life parents and friends had raved about.
Hamilton, however, is different from almost every other college in that virtually all first-year students embark on some type of orientation trip in order to acclimate to the College’s social environment and create long-lasting memories.
After getting assigned to the “Say Cheese!” Exploration Adventure (XA) program, I had little idea of what to expect. I knew I loved meeting new people, taking pictures, and eating cheese, but I was not fond of sleeping in the woods. As it turned out, this orientation was much more than an average camping trip spent playing awkward icebreakers in the middle-of-nowhere in Upstate New York. While I cannot speak for the Adirondack Adventure (AA) or Outreach Adventure (OA) trips, the group bonding on my XA trip helped me transition to college in ways I could never have predicted.
Through orientation traditions like no-bake, meat stick, story sharing, and GORP, I grew to feel connected to a school where I yet to even start classes. By bonding with the upperclassmen orientation leaders, the first-year transition felt smoother compared to the high school transition, in which I felt like I was not treated as an equal by upperclassmen. The first day back on campus was no longer a typical “first day” because I had already started creating a community of my own.
Still, I was apprehensive thinking about how I had to adjust to the hundreds of other people on campus, as well as living in an entirely different environment than a tent in the middle of a Finger Lakes campsite. While these old fears of a new living space and social environment may not have washed away entirely, it was as if they had been muted by my orientation experience.
The familiarity I had with my orientation trip peers and the awareness of the possibility of finding other similar people and activities encouraged me to be open to new opportunities, rather than closing myself off the minute classes started and the normal stress of school began.
While orientation was nowhere near over after the trips came back to campus, I knew I had a group of people that could make the less-riveting times of the week — lectures and mandatory activities and the like — more enjoyable (or at least not as daunting.)
Unlike the larger universities in the U.S., where the students are simply plopped into a pool of 50,000 kids, Hamilton’s orientation trip program creates a smooth transition from home life to college life — even for the most unprepared. Some first-year students have never been away from home, making this an experience that pushes them out of their comfort zone as soon as it begins. For me, though, these camping trips help alleviate any fears of being forced into a large, overwhelming environment on your first day.
In creating AA, XA, and OA trips for incoming students, Hamilton avoids (some) of the awkward first meals with new people and the lost-looking first-years stumbling their way around campus. With the opportunity to get a sense of the College’s climate before complete immersion with the full student body, first-year students ultimately benefit from their orientation trips — even if it does mean eating GORP and meat stick for 5 days straight.
