The freshman at
Carnegie Mellon University must come to school a week early for
orientation. However, since I've been here, there hasn't been much going on to orient myself with my surroundings. Instead, like summer camp on steriods, I have attended countless
icebreakers and sat and talked to hundreds of people for a total of about five seconds each.
The whole idea is to help people make friends. However, there was this one activity that was called Playfair. Playfair, while it was a good idea, was really dumb. About the only thing that I could have in common was the belief in how much this sucked. Basically, we ran around a football field playing numerous games, and "meeting new people." I met new people, long enough to know their names before I forgot a few minutes later.
I know that they didn't have this kind of stuff around when my dad went to college, and he has some great friends. I am even friends with them. That fact makes the whole ice breaker thing completely irrelevant.
I imagine the best way to meet is through special interest groups. For instance, I know that I enjoy playing frisbee. Where can I find some good friends, on the Carnegie Mellon University frisbee team. I don't need this orientation. Please, I've been to several summer camps, but I cannot remember anyone. I have been to several groups for either hockey, frisbee, technology, robotics, jazz, etc. and I have several good friends from those, not the icebreakers.