For many incoming freshmen, MSU's Academic Orientation Program isn't at the top of the list of fun things to do during summer vacation.
Yet, freshmen are required to attend the program whether they'd like to or not.
The program is held to help ease the transition to life at MSU by introducing new students to the campus and providing lectures about student life.
But the Freshmen Class Council is hoping to make this transition even easier by renovating the program.
The council has created a bill that details how to make the program more effective at preparing students for college life. The bill recommends creating stronger presentations and mock classes to prepare students for larger class sizes.
It will be presented to ASMSU, MSU's undergraduate student government, on March 16.
It's already a hard enough time trying to cram everything into AOP with only 24 hours to immerse new students in as much information about the university and student life as possible. Any effort to make the plethora of information thrown at students easier to retain would be beneficial.
With one stale presentation after another, the attention span of students could begin to wane and they might not remember "what it means to be a Spartan."
Gasp.
That could be going a bit too far. But students could miss out on important information because of everything that's thrown at them in such a short period of time.
It would be helpful if the program clarified how students can access resources available to them to aid in the transition to college life or even where to find information on these resources when AOP is over.
Providing students with more of an opportunity to meet new people helps ease the transition even more — meeting new people can be one of the best and most exciting parts of the college experience.
Incoming freshmen might feel a little less lost or lonely if they were able to get to know some of the people they would be living around. It could give students, who might be away from most of their high school friends, someone to rely on in the first few weeks.
The transition to college life can be hard enough for some. Anything to make things easier for new students would be welcome.
