For great justice… by Jessie L. '07

The UA Committee on Orientation has come out with a report on Orientation 2006 and the status and future of Orientation. It’s finally in its final draft pending approval by the UA Senate. I’m proud of having contributed to it. Your Orientation experience can really shape your MIT experience, especially the residence selection aspect of it.

You can read the full report, which is 42 pages (42! Ha! I just noticed that!) here.

If you don’t have time for that, you can read the summary report, which is only 13 pages, here.

Your student government in high school probably plans the prom and the homecoming dance (that’s about what mine did). Once you get to college, student government (sort of a misnomer in the UA’s case, as it’s more advocacy and representation than actual government) does things like writing policy documents, which I think is more fun. :)

A lot of what is in the report is based on the data we collected through surveys of the freshmen and the upperclassmen. We went to different living groups with donuts and handed out surveys, an old information-gathering tactic. MIT students have trouble resisting free food.

I think that all the students who helped write this deserve a shoutout. Their names are at the end of the report, but I’ll mention them, at least by first name, here as well. Note that some of the committee members are freshmen. Unfortunately I don’t know the sections of the dorm for the New House and Next House people, though I know that they actually do have sections of their dorms with distinct cultures.

Contributors to writing the report and surveys:

Lanthe ’08 (Random Hall) (Random Hall President, Chair of the Dormitory Council Special Committee on Housing & Orientation)
Erik ’09 (4th WAR, Senior Haus/Phi Delta Theta) (UA Senator from the Fraternities)
Grace ’07 (Towers, Senior Haus)
Phyo ’10 (Next House)
YiHsin ’09 (Random Hall)
Fan ’10 (New House)
myself – Jessie ’07 (5th East, East Campus) (UA Senator from East Campus)
Anna ’07 (Sorority resident disaffiliated for recruitment) (Panhel VP for Recruitment)
David N. ’07 (Simmons Hall) (Dormitory Council President)
Preeya ’09 (Random Hall)
Vinayak ’09 (2nd East, East Campus)
Andrew S. ’07 (Random Hall) (Chair of UA Committee on Orientation)
Nahathai ’10 (Next House)

Contributors to writing or tabulating surveys:

Maria ’09 (Women’s Independent Living Group) (Speaker of the Living Group Council)
Amanda ’09 (Simmons Hall)
Nur ’10 (McCormick Hall)
Isaac ’07 (Delta Tau Delta) (Interfraternity Council President)