We got up with the sun to drive down to new student orientation. Since we were strongly encouraged to not park on campus, we parked at Malden Center and took the T in. Becca has only been on the T a few times so she navigated this trip as she would need to travel home solo on Saturday.

We arrived early at Wentworth to sign in and get settled in her dorm room for the night. The helpful orientation leader who saw us walking up stopped us. “Wait, go back to your car and get the rest of your things,” he said, “you’ll go to your dorm room first.”. We both said, “This is it”. We took the T, we only brought what would fit in her backpack.

Her roommate for the night was an Architecture major just like Becca. Totally random, as room keys were given out as you signed in, they were not pre-assigned.

After an introductory assembly parents and students were sent their separate ways. We met up again at lunchtime.

While it was long at times, family orientation was very good. I learned quite a bit and I’m glad I went. I had a chance to visit the bookstore, picked up a couple of t-shirts and walked around campus a bit. I was able to chat with the admin person in the Architecture Department and the folks from Financial Aid. The Director of Residential Life had an awesome presentation including a slide show of ‘things parents have asked us to do that we don’t do’. Okay, it probably had a different name, but some of the requests were absolutely hilarious and all were things that parents have actually asked his staff to do. Things like ‘can you make my child’s bed’ to ‘can you set their alarm clock for them’, and the creepier ‘can you peek in and make sure my child is sleeping’. Um, yeah…. who would ask a non-family member to do that to their child? Apparently, someone did.

Family orientation was just 1 day, but student orientation was 2. In hindsight, we should have gotten up earlier and just taken the bus. I was going to be returning home during peak commuting times.

This is where GPS on my phone is amazing. I took the scenic back road tour of Malden, Melrose, and Wakefield to get to 128. Saved me 45 min of sitting in traffic, and I got to drive by my old High School.

Becca navigated herself on the Green Line to the Red Line to South Station where she caught the C&J Bus back to Portsmouth.