Congratulations! You survived your very first week at Wheaton College as a freshman or transfer student! You may be feeling a little overwhelmed right now, and that's normal. So I'm here to help. Orientation week gives you a lot of helpful information about classes and professors and chapel attendance and housing and where to find things on campus and even a list of Wheaton acronyms, but there are some things they won't teach you during Orientation Week. To fill in those gaps, I've compiled this helpful list of handy information you can reference during your first year at Wheaton. Enjoy!
1. If you need to go to Chatlos TV Studio for any reason, go down the stairs to the basement of the BGC, hang a right, and keep following the main hallway until it doesn't seem like the main hallway anymore. There'll be a bunch of twists and turns, you'll think you must have passed it by now, you haven't, just keep going. You'll get there eventually.
2. Also, the BGC basement may or may not have a Minotaur lurking somewhere in that labyrinth of hallways, so be forewarned.
3. If you need to find something on the Mezzanine floor of the BGC (Yes, this actually exists, and no, I don't know who decided it made sense to have a floor of offices and call it the Mezzanine), just find an upperclassman to show you. You'll save yourself a lot of time and wandering.
4. If you're the kind of person who likes this, the cheapest thing on the Sam's menu: a cup of shaved ice. Only 25c, last I heard.
5. The SRC has a hot tub. You're welcome.
6. Ask a senior to tell you why we call it Saga when it's technically Anderson Commons. It's a funny story.
7. There is definitely a portal to Narnia somewhere on this campus, and no, I won't tell you where it is.
8. If you miss a chapel speaker you really wanted to see, they put most of them on Youtube.
9. Yes, you do need to get involved with some activity or some group of people. It'll make your time here way better, I promise.
10. If you're prone to allergies, do not, I repeat, do not walk down the sidewalk that runs parallel to College Avenue on the side opposite the football stadium. You will sneeze your way into next quad.
11. If you haven't already, friend Chaplain Blackmon on Facebook. His sense of humor is legendary.
12. Don't skip Saga on prospective students weekends. They're trying to make a good impression like everyone, and we might as well benefit from it.
13. Don't keep your ID card in your back pocket. It will eventually crack if you sit on it too much and you'll have to hike down to Public Safety and pay $20 to have it replaced. (Also psst, you can change your Intra photo. It also costs money, but still.)
And the biggest secret of all: Take it one day at a time. You'll do great.