Freshmen enrichment program or FEP is what you would usually call the orientation for new students in other universities. And it consists of 3 parts:
- GO (General Orientation)
- AO (Academic Orientation)
- CLO (College Life Orientation)
Each focusing on different subjects and events. The General orientation is the first one
FEP: GO (General Orientation)
General orientation is the first part of the FEP journey and it lasted for 6 days. My “batch” is called EBN, which is probably the fifth “batch” according to its alphabet. My Orientation started on the 22nd of August, and unlike almost everybody, I arrived already using the white shirt and black pants, which is actually not mandatory on the first day. The day started normally, Buddy Coordinators (our upperclassmen that are tasked to give us instructions) introducing themselves and also us introducing ourselves. it’s only the first day, and we were already making “yell yells”, we were split into groups and the winner’s “yell” will be used on Saturday as our class’s yell (EBN09 is my class), my group actually lost.
On the second day, we were introduced to the “Binusian Journey”. it explains the purpose of this FEP and what you need in the coming years, such as soft skills, organization skills and also hard skills. All of them are available at Binus University. The next day, we were introduced to the Binusmaya website and how to use it (considering it was mandatory) because almost everything we need from schedules to assignments are posted there.
The next day, we were treated to shows and demonstrations of clubs so that they can attract new recruits called “bunga rampai”. It was pretty entertaining, especially tennis and badminton club’s demonstration, definitely a high point of the general orientation for me. After the show we learnt the rules and regulations of the university. On Friday, we attended something called “Binus way”, it is essentially the familiarization of Binus itself. We learnt Binus’s vision, mission and values, we also memorized the songs of Binus.
The final day being the arguably most important day of the General Orientation, is the day we perform our “yells” that we practiced this week and finally the end of using our uniform and General Orientation. This was also the day we signed up for the clubs, there were so many to choose from, especially with their performance the other day, made for harder choices.
FEP: AO (Academic Orientation)
The academic orientation is a representation or simulation of what you would experience in a normal college class. The classes here are already grouped based on our majors, unlike the GO class. Academic Orientation lasted roughly 1 week, with normal classes such as algorithm and coding but only the basics. And also we were already given assignments and projects to probably simulate real classes. And at the end of the Academic Orientation, Exams were held to greater familiarize us with the tests and rules are already applied, such as bringing KMK (Kartu Mata Kuliah). I didn’t do well at the test.
Organization Skills
A few organizations also were recruiting and held presentations in our class, they were Ureeka, HIMTI, and Jollybee. Ureeka focuses on making games and joining competitions, while also training us to make the games itself. Jollybee is a coding team that focuses on joining coding competitions, unlike Ureeka that makes games, Jollybee only codes. It is recommended that you join one of these because it trains your soft skills and organization skill while also giving you experience from competitions.