Prepare yourself mentally for the longest and most disorienting day you have experienced in a long time.
The reception center process is not a quick check-in. It is a full intake that can stretch across most of a day, sometimes longer, as the facility processes you through a series of steps at their pace, not yours. You will spend a significant amount of time waiting. Waiting to be processed, waiting to be photographed, waiting to be assigned, waiting for paperwork to move from one department to another. Bring patience because that is genuinely the most useful thing you can have on intake day.
Leave everything behind. Your clothes, your personal belongings, and absolutely your cell phone will not be going in with you. You will be issued what the facility provides and that is what you will have. Anything you bring gets confiscated or stored until release. Travel light in every sense.
On your first day, you will be assigned an inmate number, a bunk, and a locker. Those three things are your immediate world. A work assignment comes later, typically several days after intake at minimum, sometimes longer, depending on how quickly the classification and orientation process moves. Do not expect to start working on day one.
The reception center is a temporary stop. You will go through medical screening, educational and vocational assessment, a risk and needs evaluation, and interviews that feed into your custody classification and permanent facility designation. The length of your stay at the reception center depends on how quickly that process moves.
The hardest part of intake day is simply the loss of control over everything, including time. Accept that reality going in and the day becomes more bearable.