I will be the first to admit that I assumed a lot about college orientation, what I thought it would be like. I thought it would be a lot of enthusiastic adults trying to “fire up” a group of nervous, shy teenagers. I thought it would be a lot of students timidly joining conversations not really sure how to act around one another. I thought it would be information central with a lot of packets thrown around and a lot of confusion. I built up so many scenarios about the two days I would spend at orientation. I imagined the people I would meet and make friends with, the questions I would get answered, the experience I would have.

I couldn’t have been more right. College orientation was what I thought it would be almost to a T, with one exception. I may have been accurate about the external components of orientation and college but I was wrong about the internal feeling. The adults there to fire us up were not annoying about it, the joining conversations wasn’t uncomfortable because every single person was doing it, and the information they gave us was organized and well explained despite the large quantity. Open Rhodes stayed true to its name by opening my mind to college and allowing me to see it as it was not as I had imagined. The environment was not scary or gloomy, but the complete opposite as a place of acceptance and general happiness, in my opinion. So I apologize college orientation, I judged you before I knew you and I would just like to thank you for being truly amazing. I can be sure you opened not only my own mind this week, but also the many minds of every first-year student in attendance. You keep doing you.