itsallfake answered your question: Queen’s Frosh - Got Questions?
how much of an effect will NOT going to frosh week have on my queen’s experience?
It depends on your faculty. Regardless of faculty, there are alternative frosh week activities if you want to meet people. There’s Queerientation, run by Education on Queer Issues Project (EQuIP), and Rad Frosh, run by Ontario Public Interest Researcg Group (OPIRG). Queerientation focuses on queer issues, and they normally host dance(s), movie(s) and other social events through September. Rad Frosh is generally targeted to those interested in social justice, and they also host workshops. When I was in first year, I did a fun silkscreening workshop through them. Both are open to the general public, not just first year students.
The most important things to get out of frosh week is orienting yourself to campus and downtown (which you can do yourself or with friends/floormates), figuring out how the cafeteria system works (if you live in residence) and finding out about clubs (there’s an event in City Park where clubs man information booths - you can find out when it is from someone else or by Googling it). Sidewalk Sale is pretty great too if you want to grab some stuff/find out about Kingston community groups.
If you’re in Arts & Science, you’ll miss out on meeting a few (10-20) other students in your program, but you’ll meet them later on on your floor (if you live in residence) and of course in your classes, especially in tutorials and labs. You’ll also miss out on asking your Gaels, who are upper-year (usually second year) students in your program, any questions you might have about courses, profs, etc. You won’t know some common references, like ArtSci cheers (trust me, not that important to know). I would say skipping this isn’t a big deal. I wasn’t that impressed with mine.
Applied Science is the exact opposite. From what I’ve seen as an outsider with many engineering friends, I get the impression that you’ll be alienated or severely teased if you don’t do frosh week. Applied Science has a HUGE subculture attached to it based on years and years of built up tradition that, for frosh, all start with frosh week. You’ll miss out on a lot of common references and shared experiences that seem to greatly impact eng frosh. You’ll also miss out on having FRECs (eng frosh leaders), who often stay in touch with their frosh and provide some sort of guidance even in later years. They’re the ones who’ll teach you about all the traditions and whatnot you’re supposed to know for the next four years and as an alum. And, again as an outsider who as witnessed and photographed many applied science frosh weeks, I think their frosh week is the type of thing that may not seem that great beforehand, or even during, but you’ll regret missing. For all that it’s much messier and dirtier than my frosh week, I wish mine was more like it.
I don’t know as much about Nursing/Con-Ed/Commerce/CompSci/Phys-Kin/whichever ones I’ve missed frosh weeks. Nursing partners up with Eng for parts of it. My nursing friend wasn’t particularly impressed with hers. Con-Ed seems to do a lot of really fun things. Commerce has intense aspects like Eng, but lacks the tradition and carry-through.
Hope this helps, and let me know if you need anything clarified. Hopefully my followers who are actually in/were in Eng & CompSci can provide more insight, if you’re in one of those faculties.
