Freud doesn't wanna do this stuff, either

Orientation can be fun, provided you’re drunk or Kenneth the page. Columbia is very nice to you during NSOP (relish it!) and rents out the Met and everyone smiles and tells you where Pupin is when you ask them. There is, however, the underlying problem that you don’t know any of these people, and there’s only so many times you can ask someone where they’re from. While NSOP at Columbia has its rough moments (never-ending ice-breakers, your first John Jay breakfast), it could be much worse. Feel better about everything as you discover what people at other schools are forced to do.

At Wesleyan, the delights are endless: there’s a play called Booze and Lose: “find out what happens when a group of students get together for a party. See how quickly common sense, good judgment, and emotional control evaporate when mixed with alcohol.” The program promises to provide impressionable young-things with a sense of “how to make better choices or face the consequences.” Zoinks!

There’s also a square dance, and a “Bend It At Beckham Dance”– “come prepared to bend the gender binary in fun and fashion.” A change of pace from the same-old, same-old Orientation activities at Beck University, certainly.

Brown has a truly baffling pre-Orientation program called The Third World Transition Program. Brown says we can call it TWTP for short. Thanks, guy. Heaven knows why we’re surprised to find out about the existence of a Third World Center at Brown, but surprised we are all the same. TWTP will help people who have, presumably, lived in a wolf pack, or perhaps a far-off ring of Saturn for their first 18 years, make sense of all the big bag “-isms” out there. Under1Roof is looking better everyday, right?

Yale clearly doesn’t have time for this shit: the first day of their “Opening Days of College” (that’s we’re-better-than-everyone-else slang for “Orientation”) program contains little besides a $10 “Express Lunch”, a $20 dinner in the Dining Hall, and a 4.5 hour immunization program for everything from measles to German measles. There is also a performance showcases Yale’s diversity called “Kaleidoscope,” a title we could not have anticipated.

UPenn also shuns subtlety with an event titled “Laws Related to Alcohol In the United States.” There’s also a toga dance party at the Archaeology Museum. Best toga gets a $50 giftcard to the bookstore!

Johns Hopkins had a “Beer Goggle Challenge” obstacle course last year. This time around, they’ve decided to be a little more obtuse: all we know about the “Playfair” is that it’ll be a night of “insane fun,” but “we can’t give you any more details.” There’s also a “Pimp Your T-Shirt” event, and a play called Sexcapades about a boy who travels into the future from the 1950’s and learns about “STIs and the best places to have sex on campus.” Those attending HorrorFest are asked to come in costume. Later, Tom DeLuca, the Corporate Hypnotist, will do a Hypnosis show.

Being asked to dance with a thousand strangers who you will eventually become friends with and have sex with seems to be the theme this Orientation season. Cornell will host its first-ever (!) Hoe Down, with music from a local bluegrass band. Bizarrest of all: the Class of 2014’s Official Ice Cream Flavor (!!) will be unveiled at the event.