Choosing your first set of college courses may feel a little like you are still stuck with your high school counselor not on your own. This may be comforting to some of you and for others an aching reminder you are not on your own just yet. At some point in the summer eager freshman-to-be will flock to IU's campus for orientation. It is on the second day of orientation that you will finally be able to poke around the large list of courses and make your individual schedule. When actually choosing classes an advisor will see you for a short time to help locate class numbers for registration. This is essential since classes are registered under different school aberrations. The advisors know a lot about the classes most students pick from and classes for this major or that. However, they don't know you! If you don't want to take a particular class they suggest you don't have to! This, my friend, is one perk of actually registering for each class on your own time during orientation. Good luck and consider taking COLL-C103 Pleasure, Pain and Peak Oil.
Keep in mind that whatever you pick can be changed later if a professor has a thick accent or you just can't make that walk originally planned from Swain West to SPEA in 10 minutes. My best advice to you when arranging classes is to have an IU campus map open on the screen. See where your residence hall is (if you don't know you can find out at orientation!) and guess about how long it will take you to walk/bike/frantically run from place to place. Rain, hail, sun, and snow, you name it and class will not be canceled so get used to the idea of walking in many weather conditions. In other words: Bring your rain boots, scarves, and sun hats. Weather in Indiana changes throughout the day.
In the heat of summer, orientation seems like the event will lead to you become a tired, sweaty, humid-driven bad hair day kind of mess, but you will enjoy it. The night walk I took during orientation is what finally got me really excited about spending every night in Bloomington. The campus tours you may have taken with Mom and Dad are nice, but in the pink shades of dusk Indiana University's campus glows like something out of an old movie. A nice ending to freshman orientation is a foot soaking in Showalter Fountain. When you get to this point I encourage you to look down the row of trees lining the street and embrace the beauty that will be your new home.
Here are some other great articles about IU Orientation you might want to check out: