Re-Orientated

When orientation intern Stephanie Myer told me that she wishes everyone could go through orientation again before they graduate, I didn’t take her seriously. I came to cover orientation for the Western Herald, but ended up going undercover, gonzo-style, as a new student.

Courtesy of Angela Liriano

Hello, my name is Bradley Dumela.

I am from Kalamazoo, Michigan.

I graduated from Loy Norrix High School this past June.

I would like to study Latin here at Western Michigan University.

I was assigned to Group 17. My leader, Angela Liriano, is from the Dominican Republic. She was in on the plan, but treated me like any other first-year student.

No cell phones.

No smoking.

No “cool-hats.”

I had to play the getting-to-know-you games.

I had to act like I didn’t know anything about campus.

I had to have fun.

To go through orientation again was to see WMU anew – without a 20-pound book bag, classes or responsibilities. For the moment I was 18 years old again.

(I don’t know what it says about my group, that they believed 21 year-old was 18, or what it says about me, that I could pass as someone who just graduated from high school.)

“Group 17 is the best team!” Angela shouted.

Our tour began.

Over three years, I had easily forgotten about entire areas of campus. You walk in the same routes everyday past buildings and forget what they are used for. That brick building with rectangle
cement window panes – Rood hall, constructed in 1971 and home to a particle accelerator; the shinny new structure in the center of campus by Waldo Library – the Chemistry Building.

I forgot about the camera on top of Sprau Tower that feeds to EduCable, and learned of the $500 fine for going into the Miller fountain – $1,000 if naked.

And it would be on EduCable.

During the tour, we stopped in the second story lobby of Miller Auditorium and sat in a circle.

“Now we are going to play a game that is a Group 17 tradition,” Angela said. “Since I am from the Caribbean, I have special Caribbean powers.”

She pulled out a pair of real 3D glasses from when she saw the movie “UP.”

“You are going to look into these glasses and you will see yourself next year,” she explained to us. “But the only thing is that you have to believe what you see.”

She passed the glasses to her left.

“I see myself forming a strong bond with my teammates but also making new friends,” Dane, who plays on the hockey team, said.

“I see myself taking a lot of classes and having fun,” Devon, from Portage, Mich. said.

Soon it was my turn. “Up” until this point I had looked at the entire tour as an outsider, trying to see

“Your first year can be anything you want it to be,” Angela said. “If you want it to be sex – it will be sex. If you want it to be alcohol, it will be alcohol, but if you want it to be these things, it can be these things.”

The first time my group walked under the clock tower was probably my thousandth. Things that they were learning about I had experienced multiple times.

The amount of curiosity and intrigue on each of my group member’s face at every turn we made shocked me. The places that I used to take care of daily business were full of new possibilities for them. Classrooms, which became areas of dread, were havens of liberation. I forgot how great it felt to live on my own in the dorms that first year, how great it was to go to class for a fraction of the time I did in high school, and how lucky we all are to be able to go to school.

I wasn’t just re-orientated, but revived.

Leaving orientation Tuesday afternoon, I heard the clock tower ring – as I had every time I left class in the previous years – the only difference was that this time I knew the words.

Group 17 is the best team!

Fritz Klug, the Western Herald news editor, is a senior majoring in Latin.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=6662

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Jul 13 2009. Filed under Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com