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Incoming Freshmen Learn First Lessons: Colleges Do Their Best to Acclimate New Students to Campus Life -- and Responsibilities.

Posted on: Saturday, 17 June 2006, 09:00 CDT

By Mike Trask, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Jun. 17--Amy N. Smith has the same thing on her mind as many people her age: her first day of college.

She will take her first class Aug. 28 -- two days before her 18th birthday.

This fall, Smith of Ashfield, Carbon County, will be one of about 2,500 freshmen at Kutztown University.

But this week -- two days removed from Lehighton High School -- Smith spent her first night in a residence hall on the sprawling KU campus.

Throughout June, the university hosts Connections, a student-orientation program for incoming freshmen. Kutztown takes in its newest batch of students 200 at a time to give them 22-hour spurts of information.

There are class registration, an English placement test and a diversity workshop. The students receive college e-mail addresses, take surveys and get reminders of the dangers of alcohol.

In their spare time, members of what will be KU's class of 2010 make new friends, join clubs and find time for meals.

KU, like colleges across the country, has a simple goal for orientation.

"It's probably simpler than you think," said Dr. Andrea Kirshman, director of new-student programs. "It's just feeling like you belong at Kutztown University."

Making students feel safe, welcome and happy in an unfamiliar place miles from home can be daunting.

Kirshman has about 30 KU upperclassmen working as facilitators to aid students during orientation. They're in addition to about a dozen other students on staff and 14 faculty members who help out.

College orientation has changed over the years.

The days of showing students a dorm, the library and some academic buildings have gone the way of typewriters and card catalogs.

Advances in technology have led to new training.

Students learn how to access community message boards and use legal downloading services for music -- KU has free Ruckus service and Penn State students have access to Napster.

KU is considering podcasting information about orientation to MP3 players for next year's incoming class.

"There's a lot more about technology than ever before," she said.

And then there are warnings about the misuse of the hightech tools and toys at students' fingertips.

"We talk to them about responsible use," Kirshman said. "We do more on that than anything else."

Sally A. Stetler, director of student activities at Albright College, said technology also has changed the way that college operates its orientation.

Albright's program begins the Thursday before classes start in August. Student also can attend an optional Saturday program in July.

Albright forbids its 90 student volunteers from trying to make friends on the popular Facebook.com Web site during the summer so that new students don't know what clubs the student advisers belong to.

It's important for freshman to follow their own interests, Stetler explained.

"It used to be a fraternity and sorority recruiting mechanism," Stetler said about orientation. "We really wanted to eliminate that."

Facebook, along with another popular social networking Web site, Myspace.com, gets a mention or two during orientation at Penn State Berks.

"We will be presenting something about Myspace and Facebook because there are some growing concerns about what students are putting on there," said Sandra J. Reichel, associate director of student affairs.

Penn State Berks and Alvernia College run freshman orientations in the days immediately before classes begin. Alvernia also has a one-semester class called First Year Seminar for all freshmen.

By the time KU students leave the two-day orientation, they have slept in a Bonner Hall bed and have an @kutztown.edu e-mail address.

And they probably have the home addresses, phone numbers and instant-messenger screen names of people they have met.

"I've met a lot of cool people," Smith said as she finished her diversity workshop. "Everyone's really different."

On the second day of orientation, Smith was scheduled to register for her first 15 credits.

New academic challenges can be the most difficult aspect of a student's transition from high school. Dr. Roger Hibbs, a business professor who works with the orientation program, said students new to college must get used to doing things they may not want to do, such as studying long hours in the library.

Surveys indicate 85 percent of incoming freshmen studied less than five hours per week in high school, Kirshman said.

"One-third of them get it," Hibbs said. "One-third of them will get it (after orientation) and one-third of them will struggle."

Smith said she gets it. But she admitted she was nervous about signing up for Spanish after taking four years of German in high school.

Nevertheless, her short time on campus gave her a taste of college life. She can't wait to return in August -- even if it means doing her own laundry

"I really liked the campus," she said. "And the dorm rooms weren't too bad, either."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Reading Eagle

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