Freshman Disorientation
September 25, 2014 12:26 PM   Subscribe

 
The one from Cal is mindbogglingly detailed. I would love to see one from Stanford. But I doubt that Stanford students would ever disorient themselves and potential applicants/matriculants in such a way.
posted by blucevalo at 1:03 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Not the Rensselaer Handbook
posted by backseatpilot at 1:08 PM on September 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


How do these kids have their shit so together? I don't remember any progressive organizations this fierce and focused during my own orientation 11 years ago. I could have learned a lot about the world and myself a lot faster if only there had been a guide like this to get me on track.

Has there been a real change in the political inclinations and engagement within the college demographic? I could ramble speculatively about post-9/11 America and gay marriage and trans awareness, but these are just extraordinary in ways I can't account for.
posted by WCWedin at 1:13 PM on September 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


University of Chicago, 2013
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:22 PM on September 25, 2014


PIRGs in Canada have done these for years ... I still have one from McGill in the early 90s, it was great (although I went to Concordia, I managed to score one as a fellow QPIRGer)! Walking tour of unethical research with a map! Here is my local campus guide -- more event than manual.
posted by chapps at 1:23 PM on September 25, 2014



When I was college age we had the Insiders Guide and the Underground Guide, both based on street-level student-derived information, neither concerned with 'rankings' but with quality of life issues on campus from an undergrad perspective.

Looks like Insiders was updated as recently as 2011.

Underground delved into politics c.1970, and campus policies about sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

US Snooze & World Report is a poor substitute.
 
posted by Herodios at 1:23 PM on September 25, 2014


Came in to link to Not the Rensselaer Handbook. Thanks, backseatpilot.

IT IS ALL TRUE.
posted by blurker at 1:28 PM on September 25, 2014


Campus Activism has another list of these sites (which may be linked elsewhere but I didn't see it on first glance). The disorientation guide for my campus is not that useful, unfortunately.

Stanford, by the way, does have one. It's from 2009, and I'm surprised as you are.
posted by librarylis at 1:31 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Stanford also has one from 1996, according to the list librarylis posted. I thought I recalled something floating around from my own late 90s days there.
posted by nat at 1:58 PM on September 25, 2014


University of Chicago, 2013

Cholies has the best pizza in Hyde Park

what

no
posted by capricorn at 1:59 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


(Seriously though the list on page 104 is spot on.)
posted by capricorn at 2:05 PM on September 25, 2014


I love these, very happy such resources are being targeted towards students.

Ain't likely Stanford students would know phrases like "structurally opposed", blucevalo, various issues with that place, based upon comments by friends who taught there.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:16 PM on September 25, 2014


College demographics are politically a 3-way split between: NPR liberals, socially liberal (I.e. pro weed and gays) Republican bros, and social justice people. Transphobia (and of course homophobia and racism) is gauche all around, but the first two groups tend to argue with the third about privilege and remedies for it.
posted by vogon_poet at 2:23 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Cholies has the best pizza in Hyde Park

what

no



Well, technically, there is no best pizza in Hyde Park. It's all uniformly terrible. Cholies' one advantage is that it is connected to the Falcon.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:23 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh man, it is hilariously telling that the only such guide at WashU is for medical students and begins with a preface from the dean.
posted by invitapriore at 2:26 PM on September 25, 2014 [4 favorites]


IT IS ALL TRUE.

Amazing that, aside from a couple new buildings since its publication in 1985, Not the Handbook is still almost completely up-to-date. To wit:

Alcohol poisoning is a very popular sport at RPI

The more things change...
posted by backseatpilot at 2:26 PM on September 25, 2014


I feel obligated to link to my alma mater's own: The Evergreen State College Disorientation Manual, 2013.
posted by quadrant seasons at 3:06 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Wait. You're telling me that college officials are upset about an alternative voice talking about campus life?

Next you're going to tell me that there is gambling going on at this establishment.
posted by zooropa at 3:06 PM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


Holy wow. I helped make one of these for WPI in Worcester, MA forever ago. It was hugely useful to a bunch of students who weren't feeling at home on the Frat and SciFi dominated campus. It's great to see that a slew of other students have thought the same thing.
posted by thebigdeadwaltz at 3:59 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


quadrant seasons, I was just going to link the same thing. (I gave one of the editors a hard time last year about how ludicrously out of date all the local politics stuff was.) There's also Disorientation events on campus all this week, listed in the official campus events calendar. I don't know exactly how far back the tradition goes, but mr. epersonae did Disorientation in 1989.

I love working here.
posted by epersonae at 3:59 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


I remember the official student guide being controversial at Reed because it had a drugs section that included legal and illegal drugs, with information on dosage, effects, side effects, and long term side effects. (Information that anyone with access to a decent library could look up, but there was an argument between "makes people safer for the stuff they're going to do anyway" vs. "encourages illegal drug use".) I suspect that information would do well in a lot of these unofficial guides.
posted by Karmakaze at 5:30 AM on September 26, 2014


Not a specific college or university, but Planner's Network created a Student Disorientation Guide (PDF) for students of urban planning. It's great for emphasizing social justice and critical approaches in a field that leans too often towards technocracy and appeasing NIMBYs
posted by sherief at 9:52 AM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well, technically, there is no best pizza in Hyde Park. It's all uniformly terrible. Cholies' one advantage is that it is connected to the Falcon.

You are so wrong it hurts to look at you. Giordano's, Medici, the late Florian (whose pizza IIRC is now served at Salonica), I might accept Leona's as answer though it would still be wrong.
posted by capricorn at 12:43 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, sorry to pile on here (not really sorry) but Cholie's? No. No. Oh God no. Cholie's is bad. It is not good. It is bad.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:46 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]


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