BY YOEL ROTH

In print | Published August 27, 2009

If I could send just one message back in time to myself two years ago, it would be: “It gets better. Seriously.”

Because if one thing about freshman year is at all clear to me now, it’s that Orientation was an awful experience. For all their good intentions, the Orientation Committee continually fails to recognize one simple truth: not a single person in the universe actually enjoys an entire week of contrived mingling with a group of arbitrarily selected people who you probably won’t speak to after the first week of classes — and what the fuck is with the Trust Walk, anyway?

So, class of 2013, you get to hear the message I was never fortunate enough to receive: It gets better. Seriously.

But apparently not for me. Because in four short weeks, I, too, will be going through Orientation. Only this time, it’ll be me and twenty-four other American college juniors being oriented with several hundred British freshmen, in a bonanza Oxford University calls “Freshers Week.” And if I enjoy it any bit as much as I did my Swarthmore orientation, I suspect my parents will block me on Skype for complaining too much approximately two days after I leave the country.

My editors at The Phoenix, though, don’t have the luxury of ignoring me, which explains this column’s existence. In biweekly installments, I’ll be sending over thrilling tales of English culture shock and study abroad shenanigans (to the extent to which shenanigans can be had at Oxford; I’m not convinced they’re even a possibility). And while I’m decidedly skeptical about “Freshers Week,” I’m hoping the whole experience will, at the very least, turn into an amusing article or two in the newspaper. Here’s to hoping.

Yoel is a junior. He can be reached at yroth1@swarthmore.edu.

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