I don't know about other colleges, but I distinctly remember my freshman orientation being quite stupid and a waste of time and money. There were the luncheons out in the quad where you could meet other students in your same major, the comedians they brought in to entertain in the evenings, the scavenger hunts that would take you all over campus, and the huge group-bonding exercises out in the practice football field. They all sucked.
For starters, there was no point to the luncheons for me, since 90% of the people who sign up to be a physics major only did so because they don't actually know what physics is and had to sign up for something. They tend to switch their majors fairly quickly, especially if they've actually signed up for a physics class. The scavenger hunts are just stupid, since you're running all over a campus you know nothing about with a large group of strangers that you don't particularly like. And the professors that have been wrangled in to participate would really rather be doing something else, and their lack of enthusiasm shows, but you can't really blame them, because at least they realize how lame the whole thing is as well. And don't even get me started on the absolutely ridiculous group-bonding activities, that part of you would like to participate in, if only to be a joiner and meet people, but a larger part would rather die that embarass yourself like that in front of strangers, even if they're all doing the same embarassing things already. And it doesn't help that this is all coming after four years of high school, and you're pretty bitter about the whole "life" thing as it is.
Actually, the comedians were kinda funny, so I guess it wasn't a complete waste.
I don't know if I was planning on having George relive some of my orientation experiences, but he was going to meet the other characters for the first time, and that would've been entertaining.
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