COLUMN: Forget O-Week, be disoriented

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by Packy Saunders

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You have been handled. Handled in the same manner as a politician is handled by his or her staff as election day nears. Your handlers carefully kept you from meeting your community too soon and shielded you from the slightest touch of your community.

An invisible barrier was created during your orientation as you were separated from the true dynamics of the university. Consider this: Only one third of the on-campus population was present during your first week.

Moreover, you had no classes. What kind of welcome to the university is that? These conditions will never be repeated until your last week here in May of 2000.

I do not write this to criticize O-Week. In fact, I love this silly celebration. Obviously, I am not alone in this affinity. If it were not one of the wildest events on this campus, why would your advisors have clamored to take part in a week-long festive tribute to insomnia? O-Week is definitely entertaining. What I do not appreciate and must condemn, though, are those who package this first week as a welcome to the university. This is false. There is no welcome to Rice University. Instead there is a buffer. And you were done a disservice if you were led to believe that this buffer was anything more than incidental contact with a world you are about to meet.

On Tuesday, you will be greeted by your first day of classes as a Rice student -- a day smothered in the overtones of milestone social implication. Will it be a day that you can meet steadily, knowing that you belong? Will it be a day that you complete with feelings similar to those you felt the day before? Not if you have bought into the O-Week hype.

Things change around here. You will do things like go to class. You have to deal with old people like me. You're at the next level now.

But don't panic, just do your best and do not give up. In some form or another, you've done this before.

If you think this is stupid or oversimplified advice, then you will miss out. This secret wins wars, gets you A's on papers, lets you fall in love and, most importantly, lets you live with yourself and others through the worst of experiences. Even if it is universally one of the most difficult challenges you will meet, at least give it a try.

It is much like the principle of kindergarten behavior. If all students keep their own hands and feet to themselves and do not talk out of turn, then -- almost magically -- everyone behaves.

The same goes for doing your best. Practice hard. Play hard. Forget the competition and just focus on what you are doing. Even the trickiest stuff takes on a more gentle and cooperative persona with consistent effort and a big dose of relaxation.

For some reason they refuse to teach you this during O-Week. The powers that be are too busy "welcoming you." I do not know why they are so consumed with welcoming you into circumstances that barely reflect what really happens once the whole student body arrives and classes are in full swing. You are no longer a guest and need no more of this lip-service and coddling.

Just meet today, tomorrow and that first day of classes on Tuesday in the same resourceful manner you have met your past. You've been doing this school thing all of your life. So what if it is away from home?

After leaving this joint, the only welcomes you are going to get will be at family reunions. So forget that O-Week hype. Get into the flow of things and never look back. This is no more special of a preparation for life or a career than you have had before. This is life. Don't leverage present misery against the hopes that you'll make a killing later in life because of a Rice degree.

If you remember nothing else from this week, remember these words of Oscar Wilde: Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Mr. Wilde, I concur.

No more welcomes. You are no longer new here.

Packy Saunders is the managing editor and a Jones College senior.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the August 30, 1996 issue.

Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights Reserved.
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