One of these days

Today I went to freshman orientation at UM-Flint. I run the graduate orientation program, so it was suggested to me that I attend a freshman orientation session to get ideas for my sessions. In many ways, I did get ideas, but it brought back so many memories of my own orientation at Western Michigan University, 9 (!) years ago.

It is unbelieveable to me that the students that were in today's orientation session are 9-10 years younger than me. When did I get this old? Every year it seems like the high schoolers get younger and younger, but it's really just me getting older and older. At first, I used to have a sort of disgust for the young/hootchie'ish/all-knowing freshman that walked the WMU campus with their Nextel phones in hand, and that walk the UMF campus with their flip flops and Coach purses. But now I look at these kids - fresh out of high school with the world at their feet - and smile at them because of the possibilities that lay ahead of them.

I can remember going to orientation at WMU. It was on June 15, 1999. My mom & I drove to Kalamazoo the night before (also the night after my open house) and stayed in the Holiday Inn off of Sprinkle Road. This turned out to not even be remotely close to WMU. My mom at this time refused to drive on the highway (as a result of a car accident on I-69 years before) so trying to get to WMU from Sprinkle Road - which is about 10-15 miles - wasn't easy. It had rained the night before, and I remember pulling over into a parking lot. I was being my usual bitchy-only girl-youngest, self. I told my mom to just forget it - to just go back to the hotel and forget it all. (I would later pull this very stunt approximately 4.5 years later when in NYC for a job interview...I couldn't find a cab. So I told my mom that I was just going to forget it and go back to the hotel. She was pissed, I was pissed - so we went our separate ways. Lo & behold about 5 minutes later with a bit of freaking out at being alone on a street in NYC, a cab came) Anyway, I mention the fact that it had rained the night before, because my mom had this great brand-spranking new Pontiac Grand Prix. It was like the coolest/nicest car my mom had ever owned. It was the first car she actually leased on her own so it was her baby. Anyway, in my pissiness, I decided it would be a good idea to open the sunroof - we had a sunroof for the first time! Yeah, as it opened, it poured a bunch of leftover rain into the car. She was less than happy.

We FINALLY got to WMU and got me to Britton-Hadley Hall to check in. I was late (but made it!), dropped my stuff off in my room and was off to the caf(e) to start a day of testing and touring. The thing about my orientation that differs greatly from the orientation of now, is that all my placement tests were done on site, with scantrons. Now they do them all online prior to orientation. Mind you, I had only been to WMU one time before I actually decided this was going to be the college I would attend. I didn't apply to any other schools. I didn't have a safety school - I didn't apply to Mott or UMF just in case. I was going to be a Bronco, and that was all there was to it. Lisa Latessa, my beloved teacher from high school took me to WMU in the summer of 98 and that was it. She was a Bronco, I adored her, I loved WMU and that was that. Anyway, when I got to WMU it was a shock. Thank God I had read the "things you should know for orientation" guide and actually wore tennis shoes. I never wore tennis shoes - the ones I likely had were probably from like 9th grade and had been worn like a handful of times. The walking at WMU was KILLER. For those of you who don't know, WMU was built on an old GOLF COURSE. To say the campus is hilly is an understatement. I contribute my non-womanly calves to two things: having a trampoline for 6 years, and going to Western. Anyway, orientation was a day and a half experience full of everything: testing, dorm food, walking, sheduling, shows, ice breakers, learning the fight song (Fight on, fight on for Western...). I went into this experience as a girl who had just graduated from high school less than 2 weeks ago. I left the campus as a college student. I was scared as hell, wet behind the ears. This orientation aimed to gear me toward leaving the only mother I had ever known, getting me acclimated to an environment that was easily 10 times harder than high school. In my junior year of high school, I quit doing work in my math class because I despised my teacher with a passion. Was this acceptable? Yes. I wasn't paying for it. Boy, did I have some growing up to do.

I'm pretty much going on and on about nothing. But I can't help but look back on that day - that warm day in June that was to prepare me for the next five years - with a fondness that is unparallel. I will never be a "freshman" in college ever again. I will never move away as a newly 18 year old without my mom and try my hardest not to cry as she pulled away. I won't ever sit in my room setting it up, waiting anxiously to find out who my new roommate is. I will not ever live in a dorm again where I stay up to 3 AM with some of the greatest friends I will ever have, laughing at nothing and watching "Full House" reruns.

Some things from college I don't want to go back to. I don't want to go back to the semester when I had mono and cried my eyes out every night, at the idea of dropping out of school to get better, or staying in. I don't want to go back to dorm food (cereal when nothing else sounded good) or fighting with my roomies. No more front desk shift at 6 a.m. or taking the bus to Meijer to buy groceries and then having to carry the shitload of stuff we bought back onto campus. Not having a refrigerator and putting our pop & pickles on the window sill to keep them cold. Skipping class because I simply didn't want to get out of my nice, warm bed and having salt stains all over the bottom of my pants. No money, no car to get home when I was homesick.

But no matter where I go in my life - I have the experience of going away to college that will last me a lifetime. The 2 things I am most proud of from my college years? Going away to college & studying abroad in Spain. Both of those experiences - one of them 5 years long, the other only 5 weeks - were experiences of a lifetime. Needless to say, I am a HUGE advocate for doing both of those.

College will make or break you. You can hate every single day of it, or you can thrive in it. To the incoming freshman class at UMF: enjoy it, you are adults now. You will always have the safety of mom & dad, but this is now your time. Spread your wings & find out who you truly are.

EEC