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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 20, 2002)
j MSC gets students involved • Page 2 Meet the "Yappers" • Page 4 The Tapper (I „ . First year serving Texas A&M University Volume 1 • Issue 1*4 pages Thursday, June 20, 2002 REBECCA MILNES • THE YAPPER Members and parents of the Class of 2006 look through course catalogs and scheduling information while waiting for the next session to begin at the New Student Conference. Fish check in, then check out A&M By Tricia Anderson THE YAPPER The sun is blazing on the treetops out side of Duncan Dining Hall. Under the tree branches, nervous parents converse quietly with their excited sons and daughters. They often check their watches. They are all waiting for the New Student Conferences to begin. Every year approxi mately 10,000 freshmen and transfer stu dents participate in the New Student Conferences. During this program they find out about classes, student life, and all of the traditions that make Texas A&M special. In the words of David Pruitt, program coordina tor, it is “a great opportunity to ask ques tions.” The starting point for all of this is check-in. At check-in, the freshmen get their conference cards and basic informa tion that will greatly help them in their college life. After they check in, students have the option of going on a tour. The tours are a good opportunity to introduce freshmen to the campus. They are led by two orientation leaders teach the traditions and show the stu dents the campus. Tours Program Coordinator Amanda Roe offers this advice to freshmen. “Familiarize yourself with what build ings your classes are in.” After all, in a big campus like this, it is easy to get lost. So what do the students think about A&M’s campus? “It’s scary and big,” said Jessica Holloway. When asked what she thought of the campus, Kara Smith said “I love it! It’s great!” Erin Sziy said that the campus was very pretty although it needed a lot more trees. For Sziy, however, it was not the campus that stood out, it was the people. “Everybody’s so friendly,” said Sziy. “I’ve never seen that anywhere else.” Nora Cargo, assistant director of the Department of Student Financial Aid, summed up A&M’s friendliness by saying it has “A spirit that’s not anywhere else. The traditions are one of the things that make A&M special. Both Stacey Meuth and Holly Dockal said that they like the tra ditions. Skipper Adams, whose daughter is an incoming freshman, said that the traditions were one of the things that made them pick A&M. Dockal said that she is excited but a lit tle scared to be going to college for the first time. “I can’t wait,” said Jessica Holloway. Parents, however, are a little more nervous. David Pruitt said that is one of the reasons New Student Conferences exist. NSC helps deal with confusion KATE EORE • THE YAPPER Several incoming freshmen and their parents trek through the Quad arches and learn about different aspects of Texas A&M as they follow AOLP leaders. By Linda Berlakovich THE YAPPER What is one word common among the freshmen at Texas A&M University? That word is confusion. Luckily, for them, Texas A&M has New Student Conferences going on. Check in, one of the first things in the conference, helps the students through their confusing day. This lifeline is held at Duncan Dining Hall and has been going on all week. For check-in, the freshmen stand in lines according to their last name. J.K. Kovasovic, associate director, helps out with these programs. Kovasovic says that the main reason for check-in is for stu dents to get a lot of information about such as where different conferences are, meal plan information and how to get stu dent I.D. cards. Along with this information some items freshmen get to purchase are T-shirts and tick ets for the Howdy Lunch. David Pruitt, Class of 2003 and program coordinator, said that the check-in is always very busy towards the early part. It supplies new students with all the information that will make students less confused. Of course even with all this information, freshmen may still have trouble in college. Pruitt’s advice to the fresh men is, “Study, read every thing, read your textbooks, study even if you think you know everything. Go to class, and definitely go talk to your professors.” He hopes that the freshmen will take his advice and use it. After check-in the students have the option of taking a tour. They will be shown the main parts of campus. Amanda Roe, tours program coordinator, said that there are ten to fifteen guides. There are two guides with each tour and there are four to five tours everyday. Once in a while, if they are lucky, there will be six tours. Rudder Tower, theMemorial Student Center, Harrington Education Building, and indi vidual college meeting places are some of the important buildings shown to the high school graduates and their par ents during the forty-five to sixty minute tours. You may have heard that the tour guides must be able to walk backwards to get the tour jobs and according to Roe this is very true. Roe said that the tour is the same as three or four years ago except that the routes have changed a little and the infor mation has been updated. She added that you should always know where your class es are and your life will be a lot easier. Good luck, freshmen. Speakers show Aggieland as community of respect By Caitlyn Travis THE YAPPER Having tolerance and respect for yourself and other people is something that the students of Texas A&M University take pride in. On June 18, 2002, in Rudder Auditorium there was a program for the new student conference where speakers talked about moral and ethical issues that students might face during their years in college. At the program they talked about sev eral different topics. They talked about what to expect and how to handle it. One of the major points they talked about was drowsy driving. In the last year there were 10,000 reported acci dents in the United States because of drivers who were literally asleep at the wheel. “I had no idea about drowsy driving I thought drinking and driving was the biggest deal for student accidents,” said Patrick Lan. They also discussed academic hon esty. The University defines academic dishonesty as acquiring or providing information, plagiarism, conspiring to commit an act of dishonesty or fabrica tion of information. If a student com mits any of these, he or she can be expelled from school or receive a fail ing grade for that class. Another subject they talked about was being honest with your classmates. Being honest with your classmates will give you a better and happier stay at Texas A&M. You can make a big impact on other peoples lives if you are honest with them. Another of the topics they talked about was drunk driving. Three out of every five students at Texas A&M University said they have never driven after drinking. A major point in this topic was don’t drink. The majority [64%] of Aggies say they drink three or fewer drinks per week. Over 90% of Aggies have never been in trouble with authorities due to drinking. The actors also performed a skit on anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders and are extremely bad for your body. Student Jeremy Rogers said the pro gram was informative and enlighten ing. “And the statistics and facts were an eye opener,” he said. Aggieland 0°^ ^ ©' Corps of Cadets provides opportunites By Kaitlyn Jorge THE YAPPER at Jane wakes up every morning six a.m. She dresses in the outfit that she must wear every day for the summer. She then starts her physical training of a two to three mile run and calisthenics. At 8 o’clock she starts her aca demic day with classes, studying and other personal business. She is a cadet in the Corps of Cadets along with 2,600 other cadets. On the subject of recruiting all these students J. Alan Goddard said. The purpose of cadet recruiting is to coordinate, motivate, and direct ah cadets in an aggressive, enthusi astic, and qualitative effort that ensures the Corps of Cadets reaches and sustains a Corps of at least 2,600 cadets. A Corps of Cadets numbering 2,600 can only be achieved and sustained by recruiting 900 new cadets each year.” The Corps also helps students to become leaders amongst their peers and help the cadets to succeed during their college life. To help the cadets in this way the Corps provides an elective course that teaches students skills for succeeding in college. The Corps also provides free tutoring for small groups that need to study math, engineering, business math and physics. The Corps is a military based pro gram for the students who want to attend. Three of the mornings in a cadet’s week are begun with a two to three mile run. After their academic day they continue with other military drills or they study for next day’s classes. Throughout all of this the cadets are in their uniforms. Uniforms vary from season to season. In the winter the freshmen and sophomores’ wear heavy dark green jackets over tan shirts, black ties, and dark brown pants, accompanied with the shoes that the Corps allows them to have. The seniors wear a long sleeved green shirt with dark brown pants and a khaki tie with their boots. In the summer all of the cadets, unless they are in band, are required to wear a Khaki short sleeve shirt, black tie, and matching khaki pants. The band students are required to wear long sleeve khaki shirts with black ties and khaki pants all year round. On rainy or stormy days the cadets wear their BDU’s or Battle Dress Uniform. The BDU’s consist of a camouflage shirt over a brown undershirt, camouflage pants, and combat boots. The cadets must pay for their own uniforms. Each uniform costs around $758. The cadets are also required to keep their uniforms clean and in near perfect condition. Dry cleaning usu ally costs $100 to $150 per semester It is mandatory for cadets to By Sean O'Neal THE YAPPER Hundreds of Freshmen came to the maroon colored Rudder Auditorium Tuesday morning for a very emotional New Student Conference program, Aggieland: A Community of RESPECT. In this program, the new stu dents were entertained by a series of skits and informed by statistics on some of the more life-alternating problems that students might face at A&M. Though the program was a serious one, the actors opened the show with a friendly “howdy” and welcomed them to A&M. They were even able to squeeze in a laugh here or there during the skits. At the program, the actors and actresses acted out the dan gers of drinking and driving, and driving when, drowsy. Did you know that driving when you have had little sleep it is just as dangerous as driving after drinking 6 beers? It will also slow your reaction time down to nearly nothing. These are just two of the many reasons to get some sleep before driving, even if you were studying all night long. Participants at the session also discussed the conse quences of racism, eating disor ders, sexual assault, cheating on tests and hazing. Though cheating on tests may seem to be the only solution, you will only be lying to your friends, teacher, and yourself. If a gang or group that you want to join hazes you, then it’s not a good idea to be a part of that group. “It showed situa tions that we may not have thought of at A&M,” said fresh man Nathan Brown. Overall, students were able to enjoy themselves and learn important facts at the same time. This is what made the RESPECT program at the New Student Conference such a great success. TRAVIS SWENSON • THE YAPPER Liz Vacek (left), a future member of the Corps of Cadets, and her mother Mary, view one of the many exhibits located in the Sam Houston Sanders Corps of Cadets Center. attend all home football games and seven to eight days out of the month are spent off or on campus with the parents of the cadets. The Corps of Cadets is an organi zation with great pride in what they do and high standards for their stu dents. The students who are willin to join become the best of friend with those who join them. It is a challenging experience an most everyone that joins says the en result of their stay with the Corps i worth the hard work and effort.