Kids, Remember To Wait Until Homecoming Week To Deface The Giant “N” On The Washington Square Park Mounds

Beats the heck out of State College, College Station, or College Park — that’s for sure:

Freshman orientation used to be about language placement exams and finding the way to the dining hall. But as thousands of freshmen at private colleges and universities in New York City begin orientation today, they are embarking on what may seem to outsiders like an extravagant eight-day vacation.

First-year students arriving at Barnard, Columbia, and New York University have many activities to choose from this week, including: yoga classes, exclusive tours of the new Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, chartered Circle Line cruises to the Statue of Liberty, mini-manicures and aromatherapy at on-campus spas, Coney Island beach parties, scavenger hunts in Times Square, walking tours of the East Village and Park Slope, shopping expeditions to SoHo, outings to popular local eateries such as Magnolia Bakery, and a chance to compete for free tickets and reservations to the city’s hottest shows and hard-to-get-into restaurants.

The emphasis at orientations in New York City is as much on introducing students to their new urban surroundings as it is on preparing them for class. School officials are billing the multimillion-dollar “welcome weeks” as one of the high points of the college experience.

. . .

While college freshmen enjoy all the culture, food, and sightseeing Manhattan has to offer this week, not all residents are entirely pleased with their arrival.

“My first thought this morning was — ‘oh my god, they’re back,” a Greenwich Village resident of 31 years, Michelle Calise, said. “It keeps the neighborhood youthful and contemporary, but they don’t know how to walk, they take up five abreast on the sidewalk, it’s nerve-racking. They should have a class on how to live in the city.”

(“You can only be young once. But you can always be immature,” is attributed to Dave Barry.)