There’s a good chance that you think that the most important part of orientation is the opportunity to meet your peers and make friends. You might believe that you’ll come to orientation, explore campus and form a bond with those in your group that will last for the entire time that you spend at BU.

Orientation matters, just not in the way you might think.

There is a good chance you will never see these people again, or at least that you forget most of their names. Your peers at orientation represent just a small sliver of those who will join you as the Binghamton University class of 2019. You’ll spend four years on campus joining clubs, maturing and growing up. Everyone will change, grow, and find their niches. There will be plenty of opportunities to mingle and make friends; these two days are far from your only chance.

There is really only one part of orientation that will follow you. It will impact your future career at Binghamton University. No, it is not whether you head Downtown at night or spend all day making friends; what does matter is how you choose to plan out your course schedule. The decisions you make now in terms of planning can launch your academic career, or stand in the way of it.

Freshman year is the time to have a full schedule and to take all of your early-morning classes. After spending 12 years in school waking up early, it is easiest to just get it over with now. Do not wait for your body to adjust to a more casual college schedule, only to find yourself forced into early classes your senior year. Along the same vein, take classes on Fridays and Mondays now. Save the four-day weekends for later in your college career.

Most importantly, get your GenEd requirements done. Sure they might suck, and you might have no interest in a creative writing class, but you’ll seriously regret putting it off when you are in a class full of freshmen three years from now. Don’t forget to stay informed about major and school requirements. If you think you might want to transfer into Watson, now is the good time to take an intro engineering class.

Do your research, baby Bearcats. Know what you’re getting yourself into. The fun will be here in the fall, we promise.