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College freshmen’s orientation

Posted February. 20, 2014 04:51,   

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An orientation event is necessary in that faculty and senior students at college inform freshmen of philosophy and tradition of the university and how rookie students can successfully engage in college life. Many people remember college orientations as an occasion through which they dump the practice and habits as high school students and come to realize their identity as college students. However, since some time ago, there is practice in our society that an orientation for college freshmen is convened in large scale as an extravagant event at a training facility run by a company or at a tourist resort. It was also a ski resort where a college freshman fell to death after heavy drinking at an orientation event in 2009.

Thus far, the biggest cause of troubles at orientation events for freshmen has been drinking binge. In February last year, a college student collapsed and died while drinking during an orientation event. At another college orientation held at a condominium in Boryeong, South Chungcheong Province in the same month, a senior student lost his footing to death after heavy drinking. Though most students refrain from consuming excessive alcohol at student orientations, various events meant to show off are still rampant. The accident involving Busan University of Foreign Students was not related to drinking, but it illustrates that events that involve participation by a large number of people is vulnerable to safety disasters, including traffic accidents, fire and collapse.

It is also problematic that the university authority and the student council jointly host an orientation event for freshmen. Educating students about college life is without doubt an obligation of the school. In American universities, an accident in which students die due to overly tough hazing ceremonies occurs once in a while, but such incidents mostly occur at the student club level in secrecy, and the student council gets rarely involved directly. The term “orientation” is hardly suitable for the kind of events in which all enrolled students move to an external facility by using chartered buses en masse and hold a high profile event even by inviting a professional singer. The problem is after all abuse of power and anti-intellectualism that remain in the student council as ill-advised legacy from the era of authoritarian regimes.