Orientation Programs in School

Do you guys have orientation programs in high school where-ever you're from. It's my first week in high school and we have orientation. I just wondered whether it is just a South African thing, or not.
We have to do the most rediculous things.

No. What is it exactly?

We kind of have orientation for high-schools here in the states, but it only lasts for a few hours and it's basically just to introduce you to the layout of your new school. Most people don't even attend the high-school orientation in my area. In regards to private schools, it depends on which one your going to. Georgetown Prep has a week-long orientation, and schools like St. Johns, St. Albans, and Gonzaga have big orientations as well. But those are all the really good, meaing really expensive, private schools.

Colleges, though, have a week-long freshman orientation. The orientation at my college didn't really teach me much in the way of getting around school (especially since my campus is pretty small), but it was a whole lot of fun.

Oooooh I understand now. We don't have them at high school but we do have them at University. It's called Fresher's week and tehy have them everywhere, wehere you get to meet everyone and they explain how everything works...

*gags* we had them here for middle school!

We have orientation at my high school, but it doesn't last a whole period/hour. That's the first day of school. On the second, I think, they call our grade out to go to the theater so our principal can talk to us about stuff. That may last most of the period. I can't remember it, it happened way back in August. I think we had similar orientation at our middle school. But that was two years ago, so I can't remember if they also called our grades out.

We have a bunch of various orientation days throughout 8th grade. Curriculum Night (which is pointless and stupid) Activites Night (where you can sign up for all the clubs and teams, but you can do that later). And of course, Schedule Pick-Up Day, where you take your yearbook pictures, pick up your schedule (duh) and go around to pick up stuff and have every staff member tell you where everything is on your schedule. But none of them told me the most important part: What lunch you have. It's also the best time to figure out your way around the school. Which you really need to do, because it's three schools and they can get really confusing sometimes.

We also had a bunch in 5th grade for middle school. But both situations were the same: It made you feel really nervous about going, but once you got there it all seemed so easy.

My high school has a four hour freshman orientation which is bad enough when you actually are a freshman but as a senior on student government I had to plan the thing this year. It's so painful, no matter how hard you work no one will ever want to be there.

In SA it's a bit different. Our orientation lasts a week and a half. We have to do everything the seniors tell us to without protesting. All the girls have to have like 6 ponies in their hair, a belt around their middle (almost under your chest. We have to tie a bottle around our ankles and wear this board explaining who we are and what we're doing their. They give you a blank sheet of paper, and you have to carry it around the whole time without it getting creased or dirty or anything. And we have to have a banana, give it a name and pretend it's our pet. We're also not allowed to wear shoes and we're not allowed to look a senior in the eye.
When the week and a half is over, we go on a camp.
It's kinda fun, but very humiliating.
I'll post a picture of what we have to look like as soon as I can.

That sounds more like hazing or...there's probably a better word that I can't think of than "orientation"

they call it orientation over here

that's very different then what we have. They have what they call a "link crew" made of mostly juniors adn seniors, adn they take you aroudn campus, show you where everythign is, adn make you play really werid games, adn sometimes wear odd coustumes. My group was crayons. and we had hats. 'nuff said

We had.. funky sunglasses, I think. And we played this really weird game where you had to jump across these papers..

It didn't really help us. I still got lost on the first day.

i had orientation every year in high school.
and there was new student orientation at college, but thats to be expected.

What we do for new kids/freshmen is tell them a class or place they're looking for is upstair across/next to the pool. Of course, we have no pool nor upstairs/second floor. Some people actually spend time trying to find the stairs.