Hello everyone. My name is Randy Brachman. I am a freshman from Plainview, New York. Plainview is an upper middle class town on Long Island. It is predominantly white and predominantly Jewish. I am currently majoring in undecided in the College of Arts & Sciences here at Wash. U. I am socially liberal but fiscally conservative. I associate with the Republican Party, partly because economics are more important to me than social issues and partly because the Democratic Party is a huge mess that I do not want my name attached to out of embarrassment. Also, Republicans tend to win, and I like winning.

You are going to read my columns. Why will you read them? Well, you’ve already gotten this far. You may as well keep going. And also, I’m sure you can’t wait to learn more about me, and a great way to do that will be to read my articles. They will offer insight as to the content of my character (but not the color of my skin). Also, my columns might be a little bit funny, sometimes, I hope.

So what’s important right now? Orientation just ended; classes just started. Joe Biden and Sarah Palin are coming here soon. I think picking Palin was a great move by whoever’s running McCain’s campaign, by the way. Those mythical Clinton supporters with no one left to turn to (scary Barack vs. scary John) can now turn to their comfort zone: women. At least, that’s the theory. Also, it guarantees that Alaska goes to the Republicans in November (Palin’s approval rate hovers somewhere around 80 and 90 percent most of the time), so McCain is well on his way to victory already.

Much more important than that, though, is what I mentioned first: Orientation and classes. After sitting through Orientation, I can say with the utmost confidence that I am terribly glad I will never have to do that again. I don’t think I sat through a single mandatory event that I thought was worthwhile. Most of the voluntary events were the same.

Sure, The Date was very well acted (props to Shauna, representing Ruby 1), and all of the various events that started at 10 p.m. and ended in the wee hours of the morning were nice, even if they did cause me (and presumably others) to become seriously sleep deprived. But on the whole, Orientation was not a good experience.

What is the purpose of that week before classes start when the freshman class gathers together? I suppose it’s at least partly so that we familiarize ourselves with campus and the surrounding area. Do we really need a week for that? Do we really need any time at all? We all got a map. We’re all smart. We should all be able to read maps.

I’m sure another purpose of that week is to meet new people and make new friends. This is certainly a worthy goal, to be sure. Having a good support system is important, and who wants to be the person who is always sitting alone in his or her room? Orientation was not actually a good way to make friends, though. I’m sure many people did just that during that week, but the setup of the program did not encourage it. First of all, the mandatory events consisted mostly of being talked at. You can’t meet someone new while you’re being talked at. That would be rude, not to mention the fact that it’s noisy and probably cramped.

The voluntary nonacademic events consisted of a movie (who meets people during a movie? You’re supposed to watch, not talk), a dance party (the music was too loud to talk over unless you went far enough away that you weren’t actually participating) and some other events that I don’t remember. If these programs had value, I would have remembered them.

Really, the only time that friendship building was a definite possibility was during whatever free time we busy freshmen had. This free time was not planned by whoever planned Orientation (that is the definition of free time). So the best time to accomplish the goals of Orientation was during the time that Orientation events weren’t actually going on. Awesome.

But now Orientation (and this article) is over, and classes are beginning. I’ll be writing every two weeks or so. If there’s any specific subject you’d like me to write about, just e-mail me, and I’ll give my editor my perspective. Have a good Wednesday.