I probably shouldn’t have left it a few days before opening it, but I finally opened the registration pack thing that DCU sent out. In it has the usual hubbub of how to register, a few informative leaflets, and a section dedicated to Orientation Week. As I’ve already been a student in DCU before, I’m looking at this booklet wondering how much if any of that week that I’d necessarily need to attend.
Each course has a different schedule, but for the most part each course has six set “events”.
- Opening Address and Welcome
- Expectations of University Life
- Meeting with the Students’ Union and Campus Tour
- Meeting with Academic Staff
- Meeting with Personal Tutors and Year Heads
- Student Card Collection
The Opening Address is part and parcel as it says. Only difference would be that I’d be listening to Brian MacCraith giving the address and not Ferdinand von Prondzynski! A similar tale for the Expectations – I’ve already been, so I kind of know what to expect, and I’m aware of the various support services available. The SU meeting is the most pointless; while I don’t actually know the SU exec this year, I do know what they do having known the SU president ever other year I was there. I’d also say I know my way around campus, despite the fact they’re changed so much over the past few years such as killing off recreation spaces and computer labs for classrooms for non-English speakers and offices...
The other three it’s definitely almost required to go to. Meeting the Academic Staff will be essential as I’m moving from a computing course to... not a computing course, so the programme chair and all the staff behind the course will be different. The Tutors meeting is different, I definitely don’t recall having one of those meetings when I initially registered for Computer Applications all those years ago. Although that might also be that we never really had that level of support available except for during computer labs.
I’m glad this cuts my timetable for that week down to a two-hour session Wednesday afternoon; the window for collecting student cards is set for Thursday lunch, although I’m not sure if I’ll be collecting from that period owing to the current fees debacle – SUSI still haven’t responded and DCU apparently still have to calculate my fees status despite the fact that I told them my previous tuition was with them and that they can easily find out my old details in the archives. Even if I do go in, it won’t be a waste of a day since there’s an Eirtakon meeting that evening anyway!