Summer '17: O-Week

Hi everyone!
The college experience always comes with the very popular orientation process. My school takes orientation very seriously--so much so that they've turned the orientation process into a whole week of jam packed information sessions, outdoor activities, late night outings, and college traditions. The process itself is very energy consuming and can become tiresome, however, I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world.

As soon as I pulled up to campus, a flood of very enthusiastic people approached my car and immediately started removing my stuff and bringing it to my room. They were holding signs, already knew my name, and had a custom-made button for me.  There was very little time to actually set up and decorate my room before going to have family lunch. I went to meet some other friends who I knew were going to Rice and hugged my mom goodbye before being fully engaged in college (our residential area) activities. There are seven extremely long gold sheets of paper hanging from the second floor with all the events the student coordinators planned for us. First, we officially meet up with our O-Week groups and play awkward ice breakers. As the week goes on we sign up for classes, attend a several talks regarding sex, alcohol, drug usage, diversity, and college life, we play games, and participate in different traditions.

My personal favorite tradition was McGuffin. On the 3rd day of O-Week, a bunch of posters of McGuffin memes were posted all over the dorms and lounges. I assumed it was a prank from another college called McMurtury. Then, I looked up the term McGuffin which refers to a point in the story that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, yet guides the plot. So I thought something was going happen, but nothing did so, as any rational person would, I went to sleep. At precisely 4:00 am, all I hear is people yelling "This is the best day of your life!" and banging on doors. They did this until they got everyone outside to an hour long dance party. This of course was followed by our healthy breakfast of Poptarts and RedBull. Then, we proceeded to run to different parts of the school doing activities the advisers had set up. It was a lot of fun and I appreciate that I got to reap the benefits of someone else's hard work.

I would like to thank all the advisers, co-advisers, RAs, H&D, and everyone who was involved in my RetrO-Week. It was an amazing experience and I appreciate every single minute you all put in to planning and executing it.  Also, feel free to say you're welcome if you see me in person ^_^