To the New Kid Calling Me “Dawg”

Coming to your first year of college, you’re probably thinking about all the parties you’re going to go to and none of the classes you’re going to attend, but that’s totally normal, so don’t worry. You’ll show up with the cliché stereotypes of college, which include going to toga parties and getting thrown out bars at 3 a.m. because you’re too drunk to sit down, but it’s not until you actually survive your first year that you start to understand exactly how to be your most/least productive in college. Hopefully, the following tips can help guide you through your first year away from home.

The first and most important tip to surviving college is to avoid becoming “that guy.” Everybody knows “that guy”. There are many different versions of him, but they all share some of the same qualities. They always get way too drunk, they always are way too loud and they’re always the person that breaks something, whether it’s a glass bottle or their own bones trying some “sick stunt.” Sure, potentially are extremely entertaining to be friends with, but at the end of the day they’re always going to be considered “that guy.” 

To prevent yourself from ever becoming “that guy,” another important tip to help you survive college is to avoid getting too drunk. And I’m not talking about “going out and having fun with your friends” drunk, I’m talking about “waking up and not knowing what state you’re in” drunk. Yeah, it might feel great at the time, but when it gets to the point that you’re leaning on a wall in the corner because the room won’t stop spinning, you’ve just become an inconvenience to yourself and everyone around you. At that point, nobody is enjoying this situation except all of your friends once you pass out and they start drawing penises on your face (which will always be hilarious).

The next piece of advice for surviving college is monitoring what you eat. With a buffet style cafeteria, you can eat whatever you want for every meal. If you want to eat six cupcakes, two bowls of Cap’n Crunch, soft serve ice cream and some Mountain Dew, you can do that. You can do that every day of the week! But just understand it’s not hard for the “freshman 15” to turn into the “freshman oh-my-god-what-the-hell-happened-you-look-disgusting.”

Coming to the “important” part of college, your classes, there are a few things you should know. For instance, avoid buying your textbooks before the first day of class. You might show up only to realize your professor doesn’t use the book, but then when you go to return it they let you know two new editions of it just came out and that yours is now worthless. That may sound funny but it’s really not that uncommon, so don’t buy anything until your professor tells you to. Also, never buy your books new! You can save hundreds by getting them used and there’s really no difference except yours will come with poorly drawn pictures of penises in the back (which, once again, is hilarious).

Next off, when it comes to signing up for classes, always avoid the early ones. You might be able to convince yourself you can handle it, but by the third week you’ll be waking up to four Red Bulls mixed with a 40 ounce cup of black coffee because that has become the only way you can keep your eyes open in class. When everybody else in your hall is up at 2 a.m. and you’re in bed trying to fall asleep with the lights on for your 7 a.m. class, you’ll realize you made a mistake. So, instead of sleeping through half of your education, pick classes you can actually wake up for! If you’ve slept, you’ll be much more productive, and the sad truth is we’ll probably have to wake up early every morning for the rest of our lives after college anyways, so why not enjoy it while we can?

Finally, the last thing to avoid doing in college is bringing your laptop to class, unless you actually use it to take notes. No one can deny that if they’re stuck in a room being lectured on “how to enter square-root equations into an Excel spreadsheet”, they’re not going to be tempted to entertain themselves with the never-ending supply of entertainment, which is the Internet. Five minutes into the class you’ll end up on Facebook chatting with other kids in the class saying things like, “OMG our professor is so boring LOL!!!” and ironically, “I’d pay not to be here right now!” You might think you can control yourself, but there’s a good chance if you bring your laptop, you’ll look back on what you learned at the end of the semester and all you can remember is playing scrabble online.

If you can balance your time between fun and work, you should have no problem surviving the next four (to eight) years of what’s probably going to be the best chapter of your life. And finally, if you can avoid being a problem to campus security and just be friendly with them, it can really help you out down the road. Even if it’s just small things like remembering their birthdays, wishing them a happy holiday or asking how their day was. Because when you inevitably get caught walking into the back entrance of your dorm with a 24 pack of Natty Ice at 3 a.m., it’ll really help if you can say, “Hey… I got you that birthday card.”