As a second semester freshman, I've adjusted to my new home at Notre Dame. I've discovered the campus' hidden secrets —that O'Shag and O'Shaughnessy really are the same building, that no matter how much we North and Mod Quad dwellers claim North is equal, South Dining Hall is really better, and that lightening doesn't strike when someone breaks parietals.

These discoveries, and many more, haven't come from official University seminars designed to acclimate me to "college life," but instead have come from walking around campus for five months, talking to upperclassmen and making mistakes.

That's why I cringe when I hear student government talking about more orientation sessions for future freshmen, or even modification of the current ones. By the end of orientation, freshmen are exhausted and sick of hearing from every campus leader, and scarily enough, actually looking forward to the first day of classes. The truth of the matter is that I don't remember a thing from these sessions now. The only lasting image I have is being scared out of my whits in Washington Hall when the honesty committee shared a story of a professor who turned in a student for a violation when he accidentally didn't cite a sentence from his textbook in a paper.

Instead of modifying the current orientation sessions, why not get rid of them altogether? Freshmen will always make mistakes, regardless of the number of orientation sessions they attend. What would be more worthwhile would be the upperclassmen in their section talking to them for a half an hour, or professors speaking for 10 minutes at the beginning of the first class about the honor code.

To add insult to injury, some "mandatory" orientation sessions take place well into the academic year and some freshman are still attending these seminars now. I'm sure the people running these sessions, like the diversity seminar, are well intentioned, but all of my peers I have talked to resent this intrusion into their daily lives, which has settled down since moving in. The reasoning of these groups might be that freshman are more willing and able to talk seriously about issues on campus when they've had time to experience them. Rather than coming in ready to talk and listen, freshmen are angry that they have to come to the session, and if they don't go, they are threatened by the hall staff with a make-up session that is at least twice as long.

The best freshman orientation suggestion I have heard is a campout suggested by some of the candidates for this year's presidential election. This would be a meaningful experience that allows freshman to meet some other students other than the superficial "Name, hometown and major" that dominated this year's orientation.

I challenge anyone who makes decisions about freshman orientation to consider not what they think a freshman ideally should learn in their first days of college life, but instead what their orientation experience was like, and how they felt sitting through the numerous required sessions.

• Learning the ropes