September 01, 2011
UW-Madison Orientation
Student orientation today at UW-Madison, and I was required to go. My last required meeting was extremely productive, and resulted in me signing up for classes. Orientation, not so much. Despite being a transfer student, we sat through several people talking about how one makes it as a student at UW. I folded my napkin into a paper crane, and a postcard on academic requirements into a fancy airplane.
The second part of orientation moved us around to several group were we could find information about joining research projects, studying abroad, ext. While more useful, I found I had learned most of this information in the sign-up for classes.
Once done with orientation it was time for something I had to do: finding my classes. The campus, to say the least, is much larger than UW-Rock County. I had printed out my class scheduled, and a map (which printing quite poorly) of where each of the buildings were. So I biked around to each of them, found a good bike rack (all the buildings had good racks) and searched for the class rooms I would be using.
Some of the buildings are fantastic. One of the buildings had a physics museum with a bunch of demos I had to play with. By far the oddest building was the Humanities building, which I think was designed to be a hybrid labyrinth, and 1950ies sci-fi set. It took me awhile to find my class rooms, but it was an interesting tour.
After that, it was off to the bookstore. I had put this off probably too long, but it needed to be done. Naturally they were out of one of the books I needed.
So once all this traveling was complete, it was time to head back home. Madison is an easy city to bicycle. Many of the one-way roads, and closed areas to motorists are still accessible by bike, and I found it makes biking easier than driving. All day there was a huge quantity of foot traffic—people everywhere. Yet was an easy coexistence between cyclists and pedestrians.
The weather was awful with temperatures in the 90ies, and I returned home a sweat monster, but it was a good endurance test. I will not be required to bike this long with my backpack for classes, and the heat is probably as bad as I am ever going to encounter. And tomorrow, the first day of class...
The second part of orientation moved us around to several group were we could find information about joining research projects, studying abroad, ext. While more useful, I found I had learned most of this information in the sign-up for classes.
Once done with orientation it was time for something I had to do: finding my classes. The campus, to say the least, is much larger than UW-Rock County. I had printed out my class scheduled, and a map (which printing quite poorly) of where each of the buildings were. So I biked around to each of them, found a good bike rack (all the buildings had good racks) and searched for the class rooms I would be using.
Some of the buildings are fantastic. One of the buildings had a physics museum with a bunch of demos I had to play with. By far the oddest building was the Humanities building, which I think was designed to be a hybrid labyrinth, and 1950ies sci-fi set. It took me awhile to find my class rooms, but it was an interesting tour.
After that, it was off to the bookstore. I had put this off probably too long, but it needed to be done. Naturally they were out of one of the books I needed.
So once all this traveling was complete, it was time to head back home. Madison is an easy city to bicycle. Many of the one-way roads, and closed areas to motorists are still accessible by bike, and I found it makes biking easier than driving. All day there was a huge quantity of foot traffic—people everywhere. Yet was an easy coexistence between cyclists and pedestrians.
The weather was awful with temperatures in the 90ies, and I returned home a sweat monster, but it was a good endurance test. I will not be required to bike this long with my backpack for classes, and the heat is probably as bad as I am ever going to encounter. And tomorrow, the first day of class...
1 comment has been made.
From Liz
WI84
September 03, 2011 at 8:47 AM
I still think it's weird... I start on the 6th. I still haven't found my classes but I've found the buildings. I haven't started school that early since grade school, always been after labor day since I started in the UW system.
