Golden Bear Orientation

The truth is, it doesn’t matter how far away from home you are — starting a life in college, whether it’s down the road or across the country, can feel as foreign and disruptive as moving to the moon.

You may have noticed a sudden influx of fresh faces around town — that’s right, UC Berkeley will be back in session in just a few days.

On Monday, a group of 50 high school students and their parents were being escorted around campus by a campus ambassador when she suddenly left.

There is really no other way of handling transitions than systematic desensitization — repeatedly walking through the doorway and thinking through the steps before going in to reduce that unknown factor.

Even if I’m just waiting in line at Peet’s Coffee, I’m all too aware that as soon as a stranger sees my headscarf, they immediately identify me as the “the Muslim girl.”

Almost all transfers feel the pressure of only having two years at UC Berkeley, but I didn’t have a chance to get settled in at junior college either.

Clearly, this isn’t the experience the campus wants its new students to have during their first week in Berkeley, and the administration needs to make some serious changes to its approach to help make GBO easier and more straightforward for freshmen and volunteers who make the program possible.

In an effort to foster a volunteer culture, Golden Bear Orientation, or GBO, leaders will no longer receive priority registration. GBO will also be shortened one day in response to feedback that it was a large time commitment, according to campus spokesperson Adam Ratliff.

I came to Cal thinking I was ready. I had read every Society9 article, watched every college horror story video on YouTube and harassed every single one of my friends in college until they couldn’t think of any more advice to give me. I knew it was going to be hard, and I had braced myself for it, prepared for anything that would come my way.

It’s true: Not much is mandatory, but I would encourage participation anyway.