Orientation, Day One!

8:15 AM: Minor meltdown. My outfit looked horrible, and my sandal broke. I had to fly to Walmart, buy some shoes and a belt, fly to parking services for a visitor pass, and made it just on time to the auditorium!

9:00 AM: Introductions from faculty, then each of us students had to go to the front with a microphone and have our face on a huge screen, and say our name, where we're from, what we want to do with our degree, and an interesting fact about ourselves...FUN! Not surprisingly I am the only one interested in marine mammals...hahah. We received our scrub top and ID badge. We also recited the veterinarian's oath...it feels OFFICIAL!

10:45 AM: An hour and a half of information - schedules, standards, security, etc.

11:30 AM: The hotel calls to let me know that my dog is barking. GREAT!

12:00 PM: Lunch! Pizza & salad. 

12:45 PM: Found our lockers, study carrels, and mail boxes! We get our own little desk area in the lab with storage. We got free (if you want to consider them free - they're probably included in our tuition haha) backpacks from Hills, as well as a planner. 

1:00 PM: We all received our brand new tablet PCs! I'm stoked about this - they have all of our notes on them (in One Note, which is AWESOME!), and we can either write or type our notes into the program. It also lets us search our notes for a specific word, tag things we have questions on or that are important, and so much more. I'm so excited to have electronic notes!

1:30 PM: Library tour. A whole library full of animal books, journals, and encyclopedias. FREE COFFEE AND TEA always! I have a feeling that coffee will help get me through the next four years...

2:00 PM: Two and a half hours of computer training. Not exciting.

5:00 PM: All college picnic! I was hopeful that a veterinary school would have vegetarian options...but alas, they did not :( So I ate a bag of chips and met my 4th year mentor, who wants to be an army veterinarian. I get to follow him around on occasion in the teaching hospital and see what 4th year rotations are like. I'll definitely be taking advantage of that opportunity!

All in all, a great day! We were officially welcomed into the profession, and that felt great :) I've worked SO HARD to get where I am, so it's exciting to see it all pay off. I'm a little scared about tomorrow, with supposed "team building" activities planned...but I'm sure it will be interesting! I'll leave you with some photos:

The LOOT!