Orientation for freshmen! As for me, two kinds of activities are impressed on my memory about the orientation. The first one is drinking, and the next is playing games, such as "the Game of Death" that force other students to drink unwillingly. Those were my first experiences of campus culture as a college student for a first time. At that time, as a freshman, I couldn't evaluate and criticize those activities of the orientation programs that were supposed to help freshmen manage to start their campus lives. Now, as a junior student who has experienced, felt, and thought many new things during the past two years of campus life, I would like to suggest how orientation for freshmen should be.
First, among the articles of the 324th Dongguk Post, the one about the orientation programs of Princeton University led me to broaden my outlook on possible activities and made me envy its freshmen. Especially, "the outdoor Action" program is a warning to the sturdy Korean universities' programs.
I believe that any desirable orientation program should be organized with four main procedures. The first is the college's own ideological, spiritual, and historical education of freshmen. This enables freshmen to grasp their own true character as university students. And this can be linked with attachment and pride to their alma mater.
The second one is to develop freshmen voluntarism and participation through holding an open forum at which every freshmen can participate. Each school should organize teams which are composed of 9 or 10 students including 1 or 2 seniors. Each team is given a problematic societal theme by a moderator and must give a full presentation at the forum. Throughout the program, freshmen can get some skills or abilities by which they can bring up a problem for themselves, solve the problem in partnership, and publish their views as college students.
The third one is organizing each school's curriculum and each class's purpose through a dialogue between professors and students. This process can help freshmen adapt themselves to mature university discourse.
The last one introduces freshmen to the existence of minorities and the weak in our society. This is not wholly for the freshmen, but it is essential for them to recognize and stand by minorities. This could lead students to volunteer for and participate in altruistic minority programs.
I believe my thoughts about orientation would be helpful for freshmen. Finally, I pray for those Dongguk University students who died in the orientation bus accident on February 17, 2000, and hope for a fair settlement of the compensation problem.
The writer is an editor-in-chief at The Catholic University Forum.

Rhyu Hyung-min  The Dongguk Post

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