Today was my UC Davis orientation, and if you don't already know, that's where you speak with advisors for your major, pick some classes and enroll and hope you get something that works for you. I was so excited I could barely sleep last night, and was wide awake at 5 am this morning stoked out of my mind that it was finally here.
At first, it was all I'd hoped. I met people right away that I had a connection with, and I was so early to it that I barely had to wait in line for anything. First in line for free coffee (just a cup; this is an important fact later), second in line to get my picture taken for my identification card; I barely had to wait in line for anything! I was overjoyed, because I hate waiting in line.
I should have known that things would take turn for the worst when we had to stand up to learn the words and motions to the Aggie fight song. Seriously, it's possible to have school spirit and not sing fight songs: I'm proof of it. I don't have to look like an idiot and sing in my terribly flat (borderline tone-deaf) voice to prove that I'm proud of my school. At any rate, I was slightly annoyed, but I played along. After an hour long (seemingly neverending) lecture, from kids who have entirely too much energy at 8 am, about why I should join in on sporting events, they had me almost convinced that maybe this school wasn't for me. I perservered, however, because I am wise enough to know that I don't have to participate in such things to feel like I "got something" out of college. Believe me, kids, I will not regret missing out on screaming 20-somethings chugging beer, painting faces, and flashing god-knows-what at sporting events. I think I'll manage to sleep at night--somehow.
Once that was over, I felt pretty good, mostly because they hadn't spoiled my good mood. It was time for the small-group settings and they split us up by major. Lucky for me, there are only about 10 people who are English majors so the group is really small. Also, this girl, Anne, who I know from ARC is there and she's awesome and she was in my group so we got to catch up and hang out most of the day. Boy amd I glad she was there because this is where things start to get ugly.
So our group leader was seriously lacking in time management skills. We left a workshop in the morning early so we could get to our advisor's appointment, but he stopped so much, and for so long, on the way there, that we were almost 5 minutes late.
-->I HATE BEING LATE.<--
I was annoyed, but I coped. Shit happens, and I really try to go with the flow. Anne was annoyed too, but we both just rolled our eyes and went to the appointment. Not so bad.
So after the appointment, we have to wait, who knows why, and we end up being late for lunch. Partly because we left late for lunch, partly because we were all the way across campus, partly because the guy took us the wrong way, and partly because he would stop us every 5 minutes to tell us something about his fraternity, or some club he was in, or how he was from orange county, or...blah blah blah. Seriously, I could tell you more about this guy than I can about the campus. I could even tell you where his fraternity is located, but I'll be damned if I can tell you where classes are located. Awesome.
So, because of all of the reasons above, our group got--I kid you not--15 minutes for lunch. Granted, they served us lunch, so at least it was free, but 15 minutes? It's 1:30 in the afternoon, I haven't eaten AT ALL, I've been up since 5 am, with one cup of coffee, and by the time we got there the only sandwiches they had left were tri-tip (which I don't eat), and vegetarian. So despite the fact I ordered turkey, since I got there late, I had to have the veggie sandwich. There were no more sodas left, so even though I wanted water, even if I had wanted something else, owell. AND, we got 15 wonderful minutes to eat.
Again, awesome.
During lunch anyone who brought their laptops with them (me) were supposed to register them with campus IT, but since we were so late I couldn't do that. I was so annoyed. Why did I bring my laptop if we weren't even going to show up on time? By lunch time I was totally done with this guy, so I complained about him to the orientation leader. I'm sure NOTHING will happen, but at least I vented.
The people running the orientation kicked us out of the lunchroom at 1:30 ish and so we asked someone where we were supposed to go and since our leader guy was just sitting around talking about useless crap, we decided to just walk by ourselves. He wasn't having it and called to us (by the wrong names of course), and made us come back. We did, reluctantly, but only after we ignored him for a bit and made him run after us to tell us. Again, he stops like every 5 minutes to tell us some mundane detail about him or his life or whatever, so by this time I'm just ignoring him. Apparently we were supposed to pick our classes while workshops are going on so we can enroll after the workshops. What a waste of time. Why should I BOTHER going to a workshop if I'm just going to be distracted by looking for classes? Seriously? Does this make sense to anyone? And he was trying to make a competition out of it by saying that the first person to write down 30 class numbers will get to enroll first and go home first.
Seriously. I could just open the catalog and pick 30 numbers...so stupid.
I didn't do it. I didn't care. I had all day to be there and I didn't care if I was last, and I didn't care if he had to sit there with me until 6 pm that night. Fuck'em. During the workshops (since he didn't care if we were paying attention anyway) I left and went to the library to register my laptop with IT, then I went and bought some coffee and some water, and I walked around campus at my own pace, not mention free of idiotic orientation leaders. I'd say that was the most relaxing part of my whole day.
When the workshops were over I met back up with Anne and her boyfriend, and we made our way over to the rest of our group. I think dude knew we were totally annoyed with him by that time, because he made some sad attempts at being nice to us. I don't know if the orientation guy said something to him, or he could just see the complete unsatisfied looks on both our faces. Whatever the case, we went to register for our classes.
The class registration process was so stupid. I mean, seriously. Seriously. Stupid. Basically, we wrote down ten numbers for ten classes, and it really didn't matter which ones, as far as I could see, and we punched them in, and that's our schedule. Right now I have THE ABSOLUTE WORST class schedule that I could've ever imagined. Seriously, if this is what my class schedule has to be, I'm not going to Davis. I'll just apply at Sac State and start there in the spring. With my schedule as it stands right now, I have to go there everyday, monday through friday. I have one class on tues/thur, and two classes mon/wed/fri, wish one discussion class on monday evenings. First, I do not want to go out there every goddamned day if I don't have to. Second, I do not want my classes so spaced out (I have a class on monday at 10 am, and a gap and my next class is at 1pm, then another gap and another class at 6pm) that I have to spend entire days on campus just waiting for my next class. Do they really expect me to quit my job? Really?
Why is it that working students are punished? Seriously, that's how I feel right now. Sorry, I'm a responsible adult, I'll be sure to remember that colleges don't like that kind of thing...
Whatever.
I guess I can still change my schedule, but I have to wait, again, in order to do it. I have to wait until Sept. 2, actually, which totally blows because that means I'm going to have to take the whole first week off for the first week of school so I can frantically go to classes trying to add from the waitlist. Lame.
I guess this is reality. It's a big school and I knew that I wouldn't get this perfect schedule that would totally accomodate me commuting, going to work, and attending classes. I'm still excited about transferring, for the most part, but I suppose this is my first "bad experience." I've had plenty of them at ARC, but I'm now in that phase where, looking back, they "weren't so bad." Ahhh...nostalgia. I'll just go with the flow, for now, but we'll see how this plays out in the long run.
Any illusions of grandeur I had about UC Davis are in the past: bad experiences do exist in dreams, but only when dreams become reality.
