Tag Archives: wesleying unofficial orientation series 2016

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Official Orientation 101

Congratulations! You have made it through the rigors of Unofficial Orientation with your good friends here at Wesleying! Now, for your final challenge before you are officially Wesleyan students: ~Official~ Orientation.

Orientation is a wild time. You are left to your own devices without classes/activities/parents to structure your time. There are “mandatory,” highly-recommended, and optional sessions. There are the parties you hear about people going to, but have no idea how to find. There are those first awkward meals with your hallmates/roommates. There are the nights when you curl up in bed with a picture of your best friends from high school and wonder why you didn’t just follow them to college.

Our goal today is to teach you everything you need to know in order to make the most out of your orientation experience and start the year off on a good foot!

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Drop/Add Tips and Tricks

This is an updated repost of Merry‘s 2014 post.

frustrated student at computer

This is part of our 2016 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.

Disclaimer: While the tips introduced in this post can be applied universally, you should remember that your odds of getting into a class depend primarily not on your effort, but on the professor’s policies and how popular the class is. It’s pretty much impossible to convince a professor of an extremely popular class who simply won’t go over the limit to accept you into their class, even if you do everything right. But, trying can’t hurt, right?

Today’s installment of the Unofficial Orientation Series is mainly about the devil that is known as Drop/Add. If you don’t know what that is, the folks at the registrar’s office have provided this overview. During this period, students are able to add or drop pretty much any class to their schedule, regardless of the limits posed by pre-reg, such as class year distribution. I also highly recommend you check out this FAQ, also kindly prepared by the registrar’s office, as a way to get the basics down before proceeding. This post will not be doing much explaining of Drop/Add itself. It will, however, try to warn you, frosh, about the reality of this brutal race and offer some insights (read: randomly gathered knowledge that may have been the results of embarrassing behaviors of the author herself).

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: First Year Classes

This is an update of Jackson‘s post from 2015, which was an update of skorn‘s post from 2014. Which was an update of DaPope‘s post from 2013. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, or some shit like that, right?

This is going to be a very familiar webpage for the next four years… use it wisely.

This is part of our 2016 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.

I’m 99% sure you are brimming with excitement right now, dear young frosh — and you can’t wait to finally be on campus to settle in, and finally be a college student. (BTW, orientation is pretty fun. You should be excited. There are also parties. And people. Ya gotta like the people.) But, of course, part of being interested in Wesleyan means also being interested in the classes that you will take at Wesleyan, and as a Real Life Wesleyan Student, there is a slight chance I can help you on that front.

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Student Groups

This is an update of Maya‘s 2015 post, which was an update of alt‘s 2014 post, which was an update of Q‘s 2013 post, which was an update of Syed‘s 2012 post.

This is the annual student activities fair, where you can schmooze or, more likely, be schmoozed to your heart’s content.

This is part of our 2016 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.

By the time classes start, you’ll likely be successfully moved into your dorm, blissfully free from your parents, and finally finding the time to figure your shit out. Soon, you’ll realize that you have a little too much time on your hands — and you might want to fill that time with Organized Social Activities.

Thankfully for you, there are about 300 student groups at Wesleyan, so you have many, many options. Joining student groups is one of the best way to meet people outside of your dorm and in different class years. You could find best friends! Mentors! Something new about yourself! It’s all up to you.

As your Orientation Leaders, advisers, and basically everyone else including me will tell you — stick to the Rule of Seven. Each class you take, group you join, job you have, and any other thing you might do counts as one commitment, and you should try to have only seven full-time commitments per semester. With a standard four-course load, that leaves three spots for you to fill with whatever the hell else you want. That’s what this post is for.

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[UPDATED] Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Middletown Eating

This post is a ~fresh update~ of astag_rocky‘s repost of a repost of a repost. Please note: this is by no means an exhaustive list of eating options in Middletown, as this perfunctory Yelp search will show you. Feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments.

Middletown has so many fantastic dining options that at first you might feel like this turtle: faced with an almost insurmountable mountain of deliciousness. Much like the above turtle, though, you’ve got to start somewhere. We’re here to give you a head start.

From coffee-shop casual to awkward-family-dinner upscale, there’s food in Middletown for every occasion. This is Part 1 of our guide to some of the best places to eat in town, to be continued tomorrow. Prices are on a $ to $$$ scale. Also worth noting is that a lot of Middletown restaurants accept Middletown cash, so save up some of that laundry money for your dining excursions. Read all of our food list after the jump!

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Eating and Drinking at Wes

This post is an updated version of the Eating and Drinking installment of last year’s Orientation Series.

This is part of our 2016 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.

Eating and drinking is a necessity for all living beings, even during your hazy college days. While we all have to adjust our food standards from delicious home-cooked meals to university food, trust me, it could be worse. Wesleyan has many options for dining that you can enjoy regardless of your dietary orientation. Although we were only ranked #9 for Most Vegan-Friendly Colleges, we still have awesome vegan food and our friends at the Mongolian Grill are always willing to cook up a chicken tortilla topped with cheese if it’s protein that you want.

This is a part of the Unofficial Orientation Series 2016 to remind you to eat your veggies.

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Middletown Outings

This is part of our 2016 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.

Toto, we’re not in Bushwick anymore. You’ve now left the comfort of deep Brooklyn, as they call it, for the not-so-dissimilar milieu of Wesleyan. Just kidding, a vast majority of Weskids are from not-Brooklyn, not-LA, and not-Bay-Area, although it might seem otherwise.

For all of you from those (wonderful) places, and all of you from other places, Middletown is different than those places (shocking!). It was once the largest city in Connecticut, circa pre-war-of-1812. Can your hometown claim that title? Nah. Unless you’re from Middletown, in which case you are probably way more qualified than me to write this post.

While Wesleyan is fine and there is usually never a shortage of things to do on campus, Middletown and the surrounding area truly have some wonderful gems that are worth knowing about as you settle in and look for things to do other than vape on Foss. Here is wesleying’s (my) attempt at travel blogging. Bring your fanny pack:

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Rage Update

Students march to South College as part of ISTHISWHY Campaign

Content warning: This article discusses issues of sexual assault. Community and official support resources can be accessed here, here, and here.

This is part of our 2016 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.

For some reason, this post was not included in last year’s Unofficial Orientation Series, even though we had some major student activism occurring during the 2014-2015 school year. Before I link to some of that history and go more in-depth as to some actions occurring this past year, I want to start by quoting alt‘s incredibly well-written intro to the 2014 Rage Update:

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Greek Life

“I mean, I studied abroad in Athens. Is that what you mean by Greek Life?”

This is part of our 2016 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.

This one is gonna be fun to write. If you’re reading this, odds are you’re internally pondering one or more of the following three questions: (1) Wait, I thought Wes didn’t have Greek Life like all the other small liberal arts colleges?, (2) Is wilk about to tell me that the frats are back??? Keg! Keg! Keg! Keg! Seven! Seven! Seven! Seven!, or (3) I thought Greece left the EU?

In short, here are the answers:

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Unofficial Orientation Series 2016: Queer Life

“Heteronormativity is killing this country”

Group photo from ESQUE’s 2015 showcase.

This is part of our 2016 Unofficial Orientation Series. A quick reminder that you can check out the welcome post here and past years’ series here.

This post was a bit hard for me to come up with, because I didn’t just want to give you all a list of stuff that you can all find v easily on the Wesleyan website (even though that is helpful and I’m probably still going to do that); I wanted to tell you about my experiences as a queer person at Wes, so that this won’t be just another article that is all words without proof or personal meaning.

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