[Orientation Issue] Viewpoint: Welcome to your 4-year orientation

Every year around this time, UCLA becomes home to a strange
group of nervous, twitchy little creatures. They descend on the
campus in hoards and stealthily creep in among our ranks, filling
cracks and blending into the brick walls of our stoic
buildings.

A seasoned collegiate veteran can easily spot one of these
creatures by the unmistakable stench of the familiar and bizarre
mixture of unchecked pride and stifled timidity. Students and
faculty alike take joy in watching as they awkwardly shuffle their
feet through campus in a beautiful display of chaos.

If you can get close to one and you don’t scare it off,
you can sometimes catch them ogling you with their big, curious
eyes, trying to figure out if you are friend or foe.

So what are these creatures and what are they doing here? They
are the incoming freshmen of UCLA, and they are here for
orientation.

Generally the orientation process merely increases the anxiety
of these poor, feeble freshmen. It fills their heads with
intimidating acronyms like DPR, URSA, CSO and BOL.

Among themselves, these incoming students whisper stories of
suicidal first-years and frat-forced alcohol consumption to the
point of incapacitation. They hear about sleepless study-benders
and exaggerated first-year dropout percentages. All this produces
an image of UCLA that is as much intimidating as it is
glorious.

I transferred to UCLA as a junior, but I still remember my
initiation into UCLA’s college culture. I remember the first
time I hiked up the infamous Janss Steps and the first time I
experienced the splendor that is Royce Hall.

I remember the first time I got completely lost in the Math
Science Building (not to be the last) and the first time I was
accosted by the fraternities and pushy lunatics of the Bruin Walk
gauntlet.

Perhaps more importantly, I remember the first paper I got a D
and the first time I felt alone while surrounded by thousands of
students who seemed smarter and more confident than me.

They all seemed to know what they were doing, and there I was,
lost amid this fervor of intellectuality and power-walking self
assurance. At this point, when apprehension and self-loathing get
the best of you, the only thing you can do is ask yourself that
fateful question that I’m sure many of you are asking
yourselves right now.

How the hell did I end up here?

So, with all this in mind, I would like to officially welcome
you to the pleasures and horrors of college life. During your
tenure here at UCLA, you will be shunned, ridiculed, embraced and
comforted.

This is just the strange natural progression of college life.
First, you step into the world of academia as a helpless fledgling,
twitching with the anticipation of your first college kegger and
the fear of your first bout of hazing.

Next thing you know, you will be on the other side of the fence,
still twitching, but this time with the excitement of being a
sophomore, finally able to assert your dominance over the newest
batch of impressionable young freshmen.

Soon, you’ll be a senior, and then you will twitch with an
irritated air, ignoring the underclassmen and focusing on your
impending escape from these hellish halls.

This is the path you must follow, and this is the life you must
live ““ and actually living it is the only true orientation
process. The drunken weekends, the sleepless nights of finals week,
and the hazy hung-over mornings all add up to one thing ““
college.

Welcome to college, my twitchy little friends, and good luck
““ you’ll need it.