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During Tuesday’s New Student Orientation session at Angelina College, AC Speech instructor Sabrina Collins used a couple of unique props to get her point across to the room filled with brand-new, incoming freshmen.

First, Collins used a couple of hula hoops, dividing some of the students into two groups. The objective, for the groups to lower the seemingly harmless toy to the ground using only their fingertips, proved far more challenging than the students thought: The toy tilted at crazy angles, and the students took some time to learn to stay focused and work together.

“It’s like we were all trying to do our own thing,” one student said.

That was the point, Collins said.

“Some of what you’re going to encounter in college is going to look easy,” she told the students. “But it can be harder than you think, and that’s why you need to learn focus and how to rely on others for help.”

The other prop was an “Easy” button made popular by the Staples office-supply chain.

“We would all like an ‘Easy’ button sometimes, but in college, you won’t find one,” Collins said. “You’ll have to work hard to make your own way easier.”

With open registration less than a week away – AC’s on-site registration takes place Aug. 25th and 26th – the orientations serve as a means of helping new students avoid that “lost” feeling at the beginning of the semester.

Jeremy Thomas, Director of Admissions and Enrollment Services, said the sessions have proven themselves beneficial to the incoming freshmen.

“Everything in orientation is about helping students make it through the first few weeks of school, and how to get the most out of the experience,” Thomas said. “When we’re planning these, we ask ourselves, ‘What can we give these students that every freshman should know in the first two weeks of classes?’”

Thomas said the sessions cover such topics as on-line activities, accessing grades, how to drop or add classes, how to access the campus e-mail, or “anything we think they need to learn to keep from feeling totally lost.”

While Tuesday’s session was the last orientation before the open registration dates, students who plan to register later will still have an opportunity to experience a more “condensed” version. With the pre-registration numbers currently above 4,000, Thomas said classes are filling and non-registered students should begin the registration process as early as possible.

“I can’t say it enough: The place to be is early registration,” Thomas said. “There’s still room in the classes, especially in our off-campus locations; but the longer a student waits, the harder it is to get a schedule exactly the way he or she wants it. In addition, if there’s any testing required, we need to know that now. Waiting until the 25th is really pushing it. There’s still time, but it’s a lot easier for students if they get moving now.

“The bottom line is we just want the students to be successful.”

To ensure all records and other paperwork are in order before registration, students should visit the Enrollment Services office located in the Student Center. On-site registration will take place throughout each day beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, August 25th and Thursday, Aug. 26th in the AC cafeteria.