Tutorial - But for Parents

Yesterday evening was the orientation for all the ILCers and the parents at Pinole Middle School. Pinole Middle is about only a five-minute drive away from my house, so I had a pretty easy time getting there, and the traffic didn't affect me at all, fortunately. The orientation is basically a reenactment of the tutorial us ILCers had a few months back, but this time, it's all about the parents. Don had to make sure that at the very least, our parents will know at least where we are going off this summer, but I think I can say with confidence that everyone's much more knowledgeable about the trips. 

First, Madeleine Kronenberg kicked off the start of the event with an introduction speech, mainly talking about our blogs and how important it is to write quality blogs while we're back east, because they will be one of the first things college admission officers see when they look us up on the Internet. Before she left, she said she might come to see one of the cohorts off, but only if it's at a reasonable time in the morning, which is totally understandable (I don't trust people who like to wake up early). Then, she was gone, and Don briefly explained our agenda for the evening, Each chaperone from the four cohorts went up and talked a little about themselves and their experiences, so that our parents could become more familiar with them and be willing to entrust us to our chaperones. 

Listening

After that, it was time for the break-out session, which, as the name suggest, was when we broke off into our cohort groups for further information about our specific trips. Ms. Sciacca handed us our parent permission slip forms to sign, because as Don said, the ILC was a still considered a "school field trip," and that meant parent signatures are needed. Our parents quickly signed the two yellow papers; I don't think anyone actually read the papers they were signing. Once that was taken care of, we moved on to go over the very rough itinerary Don has provided us with. Ms. Sciacca wrote down any questions people had, but they were mostly just questions about the location of the drop-off and where to pick us back up from our trips. We confirmed that Raqueeb will be getting his own room, as the privilege of being the only guy in the cohort. 

Fun time chatting

We had a bit of down time afterwards, because the former ILCer that was supposed to be there to talk to us wasn't there yet. Jahnvi answered some questions with her experience from Vanderbilt last year, but eventually, Ryan showed up. Apparently, he was at another part of the school since last year's orientation wasn't in the auditorium. Ryan gave us some really insightful information. He went over our to-do list with us, commenting on what is doable and what might be harder to go, what is expensive and not really worth it, and suggested one or two more places we might be interested to visit. Ryan also informed us about activities he did while at UChicago last summer. He told us that each day, there were activities that were part of UChicago summer program that you could sign up for, and everyone would go to the mall, see a movie, etc. as a group. He said that it wasn't really hard for him to balance his course work with free time, and his fellow cohort didn't seem to have trouble with that either, so that is a relief. Obviously, we have work and papers we will be expected to do, but I was scared it might be overwhelming, so it was nice to have a little reassurance.

The break-out session passed by sooner than I expected, and then it was back to Don again. He talked about loaner items and went over each item in details. It was a bit repetitive for me, but it was good because although I had told my mother about these things before, she was getting this information in person, which is always better. After that, the orientation was over. My mom and I looked over the items briefly, before we departed. Overall, it was a very nice evening, even though I didn't get to talk and interact with my cohort and fellow ILCers as much as I would have wanted to.