An advantage of going to a small school is that our incoming class is small enough that we had orientation at the Marriott at Ventura beach.We left caltech theMonday morningafter convocation- it took 7 buses to fit all of us and the camp counselors. A trip like this probably would not be feasible at a bigger school due to logistics. Our class is about twenty more than last year’s, and 264 people fitting into one building made us seem like a big feat.
The hotel was about a five minute walk from the beach; being from Colorado, I spent my time at the beach when we didn’t have other activities to do. I thought the trip was structured with the perfect ratio of free time to organized activities.We were divided into groups of seven or eight and led by a UCC (upper class camp counselor). My group got really lucky with our UCC; she was organized, fun, and ran everything smoothly.Each group was assigned a country. Ours was India, and it just so happened that the ethnicity of our UCC was also Indian. A couple of us wanted to be called the spice girls due to the typical flavoring of India’s food, but considering the coed group situation the name didn’t stick.
The first lecture our group went to was titled study habits. The presenters started with what you would expect: study habits. Oh and the way they went about it was so boring! They talked about the classic how to succeed in school stuff. Then to make it even worse, they gave each group a chemistry set that we were to complete by the end of the talk. I knew that Caltech holds academics to high importance and that's one of the reasons I matriculated, but the first day of frosh camp a set? Come on. Our group started looking at the set and it looked like some kids were thinking about the answer them but I was just confused by the questions. Then, we flipped the paper and on the back it said something like walk as quickly and quietly as you can out of the room to this nearby park. We had little success with this because one of the girls in our group was still on crutches from her ACL surgery. Anyways, we ended up having some sort of scavenger hunt team bonding experience. For one of the activities, we had at least five,we lined up on a log tallest to shortest then had to rearrange ourselves from youngest to oldest.
Also we had to get through 'lasers': string with bells that rang when they were hit. Every ding resulted in 5 jumping jacks, and the goal was to get our team through as fast as possible.
Just like doing things like this one helped loosen up the mood. Eventhough I came for preseason and met a bunch of new people there, I felt overwhelmed with all the new people and shrunk back into my shell a little. Some students met during Prefrosh Weekend, but a good amount of others felt the same way I did; camp helped us out a lot.Well played Caltech - thank you for not lecturing us about study habits. Learning to be more comfortable with our class served us better than a lecture about study habits, which we must be at least decent at already considering it's Caltech.
In the free time we had during the day, most people went to the beach or built boats for racing. I chose to go to the beach, but still got to see the race! If I remember correctly, the Denmark group ended up winning.
At the beach we played a lot of sports like frisbee, volleyball, football, and soccer. The soccer was at times difficult because of the sand, but everything was super fun.
And we didn't look like nerds either, just a bunch of kids having fun. Hopefully we won't let those sets change us.
The first night we had s'mores on the beach, and the second night there was the dance. Luckily, the ballroom dancing club gave us a half an hour lesson on how to step.
Most of the dancing after that was not ballroom though.
Once we arrived back on campus Wednesday morning, we zipped right into our busy schedule of introductory lectures and social events. At any time some house usually has some kind of activity geared towards prefrosh. They are related to Rotation so I won't go into detail about them, but I'm allowed to say that each house has its own flavor and you can see it pretty easily. They are all fine houses, and usually prefrosh fit better into one than the others. By the end of Rotation, all the prefrosh will have eaten dinner and dessert at each of the seven houses, in addition to the optional social events and hangouts. Campus is busy and alive; this is the college life! Until our sets are due...
Best,
Monica
Starting college can be a big transition. You’re moving to a new place, starting a new school and classes, and faced with making new friends in an unfamiliar environment. And, of course, there’s that whole “becoming an adult” thing. But, you’re also leaving a lot behind. Every new beginning means that an old chapter must come to an end. Leaving behind our friends at home may seem difficult, especially if they’re going to be a long distance away from you during the school year. Something I made sure to do was to spend a lot of time with them during the summer after high school. Of course, going to college doesn’t mean you’ll never see your friends again, or that you will no longer be friends with them. Good friendships will last if you put effort into them. It may seem hard initially. Coming into Caltech, it’s a sharp adjustment and many are caught up in the excitement of Orientation, Rotation, and starting classes. It may be hard to remember to check your phone frequently and to make time for phone calls and such. Rest assured that if you have other friends going to college, they’re probably going to go through similar things you will. In this transition period, it can feel like you’re going to immediately lose touch with people that mean a lot to you.
Let’s face it: the US loves being just a little different from everyone else. The obvious example? Units of measurement. As an international student from Canada, even I have no clue what’s going on half the time when my friends talk to me and use these weird nonsensical units. And I’ve literally lived on the border between Canada and the States for all my life. After a year here, I’ve finally got a sense of how the two systems of measurement compare and how you can more easily get your bearings with these weird units.
After a year spent in “soft-lockdown” at home in Atlanta, and as Caltech students prepared to finally return to campus, I was aboard an eight hour flight towards Edinburgh, Scotland. Since my junior year plans were interrupted by the virus who shall not be named, I’m spending my first term of senior year studying abroad through the Caltech - Edinburgh University International Exchange program. I’ve only been here just over a week yet have been exposed to so many new people, perspectives, foods, and classes.
When the announcement was first made that fall term was going to be online, I started talking to friends and looking for places to live. We were debating locations around the country: California, Florida, New York, etc.. there were plenty of options. Then it suddenly hit me, what is stopping us from going to Hawaii, covid numbers were better and a two week quarentine would ensure that numbers stayed down… I proposed this to my friend and we agreed it would be an amazing experience, but we didn’t want to get out hopes up. A month or so later we still haven’t decided where to live, Hawaii seemed too far and too difficult to plan. But we couldn’t get the idea out of our heads. We spent some time looking into plane tickets, places to stay, etc… and it actually didn’t seem so impossible after all. A couple weeks later and we were arriving here on the big island!
