Orientation Week: A Time for Mingling, Gossip, and Bottled Water

Forty-five minutes into the Museum of Modern Art Garden Party for first-years Saturday evening, Mike Grinspan, CC ’09, was already bored.

“We’ve been working on our cocktail conversation,” he said, sipping from a baby Poland Spring bottle.

Over the past week, the Class of 2009 has had numerous opportunities to meet. But by Saturday night, as the freshest men and women in academia milled about the fountains and metallic structures of MoMA’s outdoor Sculpture Garden, many of them seemed ready to move on.

“By this time in Orientation Week, everyone has their group of friends,” Janine Carpenter, CC ’09, said.

Andrew Lyubarsky, CC ’09, has formed similar bonds with students living on his floor in Carman. “We’ve sequestered ourselves into a small group,” he said. “It’s mostly to defend ourselves from the eight-foot-tall football players.”

MoMA opened up its doors for the day to students eager to view one of the city’s most prestigious art collections and conclude the evening with a quintessentially New York activity—mingling.

Students formed clusters, sipping Sprite instead of wine and nibbling pretzels instead of cheese at a location chic enough to make the Hudson Hotel look like the Hudson yards.

The food supply, meanwhile, was as spare as a Piet Mondrian. Waiters in black sporadically streaked through the crowd, hors d’oeuvre platters held aloft, with a trail of students in tow.

The tables’ white linen coverings remained bare most of the night, except for the moments when a waiter would drop a platter hurriedly and leave the vultures to feed.

“The food disappears as fast as it appears,” one student said.

“Faster,” said another.

Once the crowd dispersed, only a bowl of soy sauce, fried flecks floating on its surface, remained.

Paul Tarbie, CC ’09, an anthropology student from Paris, looked around bemused. “There could be more alcohol,” he said.

Many of the budding New Yorkers arrived late after the downtown 1 train skipped 50th Street, forcing the most elegant attendees to dodge grates for 10 blocks in their stiletto heels.

Even after a week of initiation rituals, it might take more than a few walking tours and a party at MoMA to become a seasoned New Yorker. “I’m still feeling like a tourist,” said Sara Lombardi, BC ’09.

But for non-city slickers like Rose Eason, BC ’09, Orientation has been as essential to her education as pencils and paper. “I’ve been learning a few things,” she said. “Like how not to make eye contact on the street.”

Orientation gossip spreads like the plague, and by the end of the night the garden was a sick ward.

Everyone had a story, from the Carman resident who smoked up with his dad during move-in to the girl who received a private serenade of “You Are So Beautiful” from a stranger on the subway.

“I hear student government is vicious,” Grinspan said.

“I hear the Spectator misquotes people,” Eason said.

This reporter declined to comment.