School Orientation

It might not be necessary for me to go to school orientation because I have been living in the states for four and a half year. I know how to be a survived alien stucking in the Golden State.

Don't get me wrong! I'm not the expert though, but sometimes we need to use some strategies to solve the problems. Do you agree with me? Anyway, I joined two orientations this weeek, one for international student and one for my department.

If you live in the U.S. quite sometime, you will notice that it's not hard to adapt your lifestyle and conform to a new environment. Going to orientation is not that bad at all. At least, as an international student, I could update my information about immigration issues and be aware of faling to maintain the rule of game. Furthermore,this give me an opportunity to use my rhetoric skill again.

I'm so impressed with the manner of the claremont colleges' staff. They are very kind and helpful. I was treated like one of the important person (I'd love to brag, u know). On that day, they introduced many facilities and services for international student, such as, Hannold Library, Baxtor Health Center, Writing Center,Huntley Bookstore, and International place (I-place. What impressed me the most is the I-place.

I-place looks like other ordinary offices except its main service is for international student. They help and escort new coming students to find a house, bring them for shopping, pick them up from the airport, advice them how to get a driver's license. Some special cases they will act like as your guadian, taking a good care like their children (This is what I have been told a story from current student). The interesting service is that the facility is opened 24/7, which means we can use this office as a study room, watch world cup (it's coming dude), party etc. with no additional charge. I-place is equipped with living room, kitchen, computer stations, restroom, cable TV and so on. It's nice ha! At the end of international orientation, we had current econ student guiding us to computer room and Hannold Library.

Couple days later (Friday, 13), I had to wake up like 6.00 a.m. to take a 40-minute drive to CGU for my department orientation. There were not too many students and faculty (roughly 17 lives). I started my day at Baxtor Student Health Service to get a TB test. Don't even ask me what the heck this test is! The dude has no answer for you. What they did is to inject kinda germ into my skin and let see for any allergy and rash around injected area in the next couple of days. If I have a big rash and allergy, this implies that i have a positive test which is I'm a dangerous walking animal on campus.If I don't have any effect, so it means i have a negative result which is the way it should be.

Let's talk about my department orientation then! Basically, I have been greeted by Dean of School of Politics and Economics, Yi Feng (scroll down to page 15 to read his story. Personally, his life is very interesting to me). And more staff were coming and introduced services under my school. Next, it was time to see my advisor. This was a little bit confused to me.

Since, I will do both study in Politics and Economics. I had to talk with 5 different professors to persuade and convince them that I am able to skip some classes since I already took Micro- and Macro Econ at graduate level with satisfied letter grade. Also, I took some classes in American Politics and Administration. In this case, I should be granted 24-credit courses transfer and continue studying more advanced courses, which seems to be ok for them but the deal is the advanced courses that i will take must get at least B+.That is not a bad deal at all, isn' it? I can save lots of money for something else.

The another problem is comprehensive exam. This information is very unclear on the website how I will take comprehensive exam for interfield student. But after I talked with some professors. It's pretty much ok now. The bottom line is I have to pick one of the two econ classes, either micro econ or macro econ, to satisfy department of economics. Then, I take another comp test from politics. At last, I will take an exam in my special field which is public choice and political economy.

It must have done faster for academic advising if i were only either econ student or pol sci student. It took me two hours and a half to finish this conversation. I'm so exhausted. But afterward, school provided us a variety of sanwiches and snack. So Yummy! It was all about update for this week.