Lana Altunashvili ’27 is a prospective biology major. She is a James Monroe Scholar and a member of Club Tennis. Contact her at laltunashvili@wm.edu.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
Now in my second month of my freshman year, I have no doubt that at some point, somebody I know will pass me by and say hello as I sit outside on Sadler Terrace. It feels as though I know so many people, and as if I’ve been here much longer than a meager month. Even after these 30 days, I find myself looking back at my very first week at the College of William and Mary — Orientation week. Some people love it, others hate it and some are simply glad they made it through those seven days. I’m glad to be part of the first group, and here’s why.
Before coming here, I’d probably exhausted the limited supply of YouTube videos on the College’s orientation. I was excited to come here, but that excitement was also accompanied by the fear of “not fitting in” or “not making friends,” which are valid concerns when leaving high school. I had not only changed states like many other students, but I’d changed countries, continents and primary languages. It’s a lot to process for someone who’s spent 18 years of their life in one place, studying at one school for 12 years and surrounded by the same people. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. And yet, the day had come. There I was, in the front seat of the car, looking out the window at my new home for the next four years.
I won’t lie, being greeted by an Orientation Aide screaming, “WELCOME TO THE TRIBE” at the top of his lungs was funny and weirdly welcoming (whoever you were, I hope your vocal cords are doing well). After that, I’d gotten my key and set out to DuPont Hall. Now, you might say, “Well, Dupont is pretty close to everything. Caf is right there, they have air conditioning — no wonder she liked Orientation.” And maybe that did have some influence on my perception of that week, but I think the most important thing to me goes back to the first person I saw at the College: that OA screaming at oncoming cars. The highlighters, I think, are what made Orientation feel so special.
Now, I’m not typically the most energetic person. Neither am I a morning person. So waking up at 7:30 a.m. was not my idea of the perfect first week of college. But I have to admit, being in a completely new environment, meeting an entire hall of new people and having one of my OAs play “Party in the U.S.A” by Miley Cyrus at full volume motivated me to make the most of that week. It wasn’t the scheduled events that I loved, but rather the moments of normalcy during those events or in between them. Bonding over stories, mutual discoveries or anything else made me feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself.
Memories like being stuck at Sadler with our OAs during a particularly rainy day stick out to me when thinking of that time. That day, we decided to stay in and ended up talking quite a bit not only about the College, but also ourselves. It seems to me there’s nothing more effective in establishing a friendship than having a few laughs, than spending precious moments with people that haven’t known you for long but welcome you nonetheless — you find yourself sharing personal bits and pieces of yourself. And those bits and pieces don’t even have to be deeply personal: they can be something seemingly ordinary but still something you’ve seldom divulged to others. At that point, the OAs had built an atmosphere that was fun and non-judgmental; they made me see the College as a place where I could grow and be genuinely happy with people I liked.
Now a month later, after all of these memories have faded, I’ve realized that what made Orientation week so special wasn’t really what we were doing, but rather that we were together, trading stories and sharing parts of ourselves with people that we’d grown closer to over the past few days. To an extent, I don’t even remember the heat or the unbearable humidity. What I do remember is going to Colonial Williamsburg with everyone, visiting Marketplace, playing Mafia at the Slice and chanting “Du-du-du-du-du-du-pont!” at the Zable Stadium to the melody of “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes. My point is that by the end of that week, I knew I had people to turn to if I felt lost; I knew I’d have familiar faces around campus. By the time Convocation rolled around, this place — once so foreign to me on move-in day — felt much more like home. And who knows, maybe because of all this, next year I’ll try to make orientation week as special for the class of 2028 just like how my OAs made it for me.