Sunday, 22nd August 2004
Orientation
On the 19th and 20th of August CSU had the international students orientation.
Thursday, August 19, 2004 at University Center, Room 1
9:00 am - 9:45 am Registration and Breakfast
9:45 am - 10:00 am Opening Comments - George Burke, Director CISP
10:00 am - 10:30 am Culture Shock - Ms. Monica A. Plunkett, Intl Student Advisor
10:30 am - 11:00 am Classroom Expectations in the US - Dr. John Donoghue
11:00 am - 11:15 am BREAK
11:15 am - 11:45 am Immigration Status In SEVIS Ms. Monica A. Plunkett
11:45 am - 12:15 pm Legal Issues - Mr. Gerard D'Souza, Attorney
12:15 pm - 12:25 pm Welcoming Remarks - President & Provost
12:25 pm - 2:00 pm Lunch - Served in University Center Cage, Free of charge
2:00 pm - 2:30 pm CSU Health Services and your Health Insurance
2:45 pm - 3:15 pm Getting around in Cleveland Without a Car
3:15 pm - 3:30 pm International Friends- Tom Wright
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm Trolley Tour of Cleveland - Free of Charge
Friday, August 20, 2004 at University Center, Room 1
9:00 am - 10:00 am Breakfast TB Testing Table
10:00 am - 10:15 am Your Safety - Officer David Ostroske, CSU Police
10:15 am - 10:45 am Getting a Driver's License - Ms. Rochelle Turner, BMV
10:45 am - 11:00 am BREAK
11:00 am - 11:30 am Career Services - Ms. Pat O'Donnell, Career Services
11:30 am - 12:00 pm Information Technology - Ms. Pat Cunningham Reid, IS&T
12:15 pm - 2:00 pm Restaurant Hop with CSU Staff and Faculty Free of charge
2:00 pm - 2:15 pm Taxes - Ms. Karen Ellis-Morris, Records Management Officer
2:15 pm - 3:00 pm Library Information Session & Tour- Ms. Kathy Dobda, Library
International Students Orientation was held on two days Aug 19 and Aug 20. I reached orientaion hall on the first day at 9:25 AM. I had asked my roommates to hold a seat for me but instead i reached much before they did. I was advised by my seniors that there would be good food at the orientation and that i should try and bag as much as i can.
Orientation began with opening comments by Mr.George Burke. He began by describing the number of countries from which students come to CSU. He would call out each country and students from that country would stand up. When the turn of India came up, nearly 60% of the room stood up !!!
This was followed by culture shock by Ms.Monica Plunkett who is the international student advisor. I (and everyone else) found monica to be very friendly and funny (and attractive too although no one says it out loud). She showed us a clip (she shows the same clip every year apparently) illustrating a hilarious situation when people from two different countries and situations meet. She then asked the audience what their first impression of the people of US was. This was met by responses such as "People are obese" .. "Friendly" ... "Polite" ... "Helpful" ... "Smiles from the opposite gender get mistaken". One wise ass guy stands up and is given the mike by monica. He then goes on to offer desi students advice about choice of words. Warning us about using the word "need a shot" ... rather than "need an injection" .... and also warned about "Asking for a rubber" in class which was clarified by monica who said that a rubber in india means an eraser while here it means a condom. My thoughts about the smart ass guy .... gimme a break dude we're not that dumb.
This was followed by a talk by Dr. John Donoghue from the Electrical and Computer Engineering dept about classroom expectations in the US. We were given handouts with a questionairre (10 ques) on classroom behaviour. I got 6 wrong which doesn't say to much about my class room etiquitte (not that i should be blamed coz i never used to go to class too much to know whatz right and whatz wrong). My misconceptions about eating in class and addressing professors by their first name was set straight which is good.
Monica then came back and explained about the immigration status, SEVIS and on-campus work. She warned against working off-campus but i'm sure it fell on deaf ears as far as the desi students were concenrned. She was basically trying to give pointers to everyone on how to stay outta jail but the desi students know better. Monica has a really good sense of humour and is well liked by all international students
This was followed by a talk by Mr. Gerard D'Souza who was Attorney. He explained some legal terms such as lease, security deposit and other legal jargon that no-one in their right senses would care to listen. He also gave a few pointers on buying a car and insurance etc ... more boring stuff actually.
He was cut short because the President and Provost (whatever that means) of CSU wanted to give a talk and they are much more important people (apparently). The president Micheal Schwartz briefly introduced himself and the Provost then took over. He tried to amuse everyone about a Visa incident back in his country and a lame excuse of inventing an artifical limb for a handicapped mother. But the story evoke any interest from anyone in the audience mainly due to the highly oriental accent of his.
Then came the time everyone (atleast the desi crowd) was waiting for ... LUNCH ... to say that the menu was oriented to cater to the largely desi population would be an understatement because there was Malai Kofta, Samosa, Halal chicken etc. Lunch was really good and we had the president and provost walking from table to table, talking to students. There were lotz of desserts (indian style sweets) but they were too sugary for my liking ... but overall a very enjoyablke lunch ... i guess everyone really pigged out.
Lunch was followed by a talk on health and health insurance (a waste of money for most) ..... The lady making the presentation, Ms. Barbara Caldwell was telling the audience about the easy accessibilty of emergency room and that you could walk right into their offices or clinic or the emergency rooms without an appointment. One desi guy gets too big for his boots and stands up and asks her ... "If my leg is in a cast how do i walk to the emergency room" .... c'mon man ... tell me u have atleast one friend who can take you to a clinic .. if u don't then u'r better off rotting right there. ... the answer she gave was "Call campus police .. they would be glad to help you out".
The problem of being in the US is that without a car you feel kinda crippled. So most students (except for most of the desi community) have cars. For the desi student community buying a car is a mile stone that they wish to reach as early as possible. So most people weren't intereted in what Ms. Shearldean Davis, (Regional Transit Authority - RTA) had to say. but she apparently informed students about the bus services (which are free for us students) available to them. I wasn'y there to attend because ... whent the lady who was to come was late, most of us had gotton up and were in the cyber lounge where we saw the new job posting in the Urban Affairs building and in the currently high priority job hunt we went to apply to for the job post.
I didn't attent the next presentation about International friends by Tom Wright because i was desperate to try and get back before the trolley tour began .My roomates tell me that Tom spoke to us about the services offered by international friends and the picnic they planned to arrange (Which i unfortunately would not be attending) .... and also the gifts they have for us .. international students.
The next part was the trolley tour of cleveland which i was really looking forward to ( mainly becoz i hadn't been outta downtown cleveland at all and really wanted to see other parts of the city). I made it just in the nick of time and managed to get onto the last (red) trolley. The tour was pretty good because the driver tried to make it interesting but would get really excited at certain times for instance when he talks about the Cleveland Indains team (baseball) or the Cleveland Cavaliars (Basketball) ... and when he got excited he would pull the horn real loud and this would get everyone bursting with laughter. The biggest irony of things was that he was showing and explaining about historical places which are just 100 years old as if it is a big deal ... and i'm like .... big deal ... some residential houses in b'lore are much older and it really is pathethic that this country has no history :).
That ended the first day of orientation. Overall quite interesting coz i got to see plenty of pretty faces of the international community and especially of the fairer sex. Some of the desi guys were trying real hard to hit on this really cute bulgarian or swedish (i think) undergrad student. I wondered how many pretty faces will be taking the same courses as me .... :).
The second day of orientation began in similar fashion as the first with breakfast ... same menu as the previous day, consisting of doughnuts, bagels, orange juice, cakes, pies etc. Desi guys were trying to be stealthy in their gobbling up of delicious snacks .... me not care a damn.
The next person to speak was Mr David Ostroke who tried his level best to assure the students (especially the women folk) that CSU campus was a very safe place ... i doubt that with me and the other desi folk on the prowl ... :). He also gave us some tips and precautionary measures on how to protect oneself, books, cars etc. This would be the first of two occasions when i would be listening to this speaker. The second occasion would be the buisness school orientaion that would follow a few days later.
This was followed by the part most students were waiting for .... the part where u get to know how to get a drivers license. Suprisingly (or maybe not so) ... the most number of question came during this talk and most of them were from desi students. My the guys are desperate to drive .... and they don't even have a car yet. I have alreay got a temporary drivers permit (kinda equivalent to indian learners permit) and knew what all needed to be done to get the licence and was showing off in front of everyone else around me, who sadly had not clue on how it easy it was to get a licence !!!.
The next two presentaions .... Career Services by Ms. Pat O'Donnell and by Ms. Pat Cunningham Reid, of Information Services and Technology were uneventful and i won't go into them much.
After this was something which sounded very interesting and aroused my interest the first time i heard about it. It was the restaurant hop where faculty members takes students out to lunch. The entire audience was divided into a 21 groups (because only 21 faculty members showed up) and each group (off 4-5 students) were assigned to 1 faculty member.
I was in a group where there was a guy from Taiwan, a woman (i say woman coz she is already married) from Shangai, me and another girl from India (her name is Kanthi). The faculty members name was Bruce. He was from the psycholgy dept. He took us to the coffee shop close to campus where we all had sandwiches and soda. There apparently is a $8 limit for each student. The place we went to was a popular hangout for faculty members and i really liked the grilled chicken sandwich i had. Throughout lunch we all talked (Bruce did most of the talking) and i was struggling to understand what the other asian folk (the taiwanes guy and shangai woman) were saying because they were really struggling to communicate in English. The Shangai woman has even been in Cleveland for several years yet struggles. Seriouls people from the oriental part of Asia struggle because of language issues.
After lunch since we we had time to spare, Bruce took us to a church close by. It was a fairly nice church. He was telling us about the different sermons that go on ..... i wasn't paying to much attention coz i knew i wouldn't have too much time to be attending sermons (although i would have liked to).
We got back to University Center (the venue for orientaion) for the finale events to orientaion. I had a bus to catch at 3 PM back to my sisters house in Columbus, so that was playing at the back of my mind during the talk on taxes by Ms. Karen Ellis-Morris. I left before the final talk on Library Info Services began.
So thatz how international students orientation went. Check out some of the pics of the orientation.
Orientation Day Pictures
Auditorium
Presentation by a speaker
Guys
Univ Centre (aka) - Cage
Flags of countries
My roomies
Desi folk
Oriental touch
At Lunch
Lunch
Lolly the Trolley
Posted by Nikhil on Sunday, 22nd August 2004 in Fun | Events | Life in general