Freshmen advice
It’s that time of year again, when the arid, dirty heat of Utah gives way to slightly less arid and dirty heat of Utah’s fall. To help us compensate, the schools allow their doors to open once more, letting students bask in the wonderful feeling of a room crammed with 30 to 40 people whose air conditioning has been damaged for who knows how long.
This archived article was written by: CJ Evans
It’s that time of year again, when the arid, dirty heat of Utah gives way to slightly less arid and dirty heat of Utah’s fall. To help us compensate, the schools allow their doors to open once more, letting students bask in the wonderful feeling of a room crammed with 30 to 40 people whose air conditioning has been damaged for who knows how long.
Yes, we know that the repairperson took care of the problem months ago but that was in December when trying to cool down wasn’t the first thing on our minds and when we were wearing enough clothes that bending our elbows was a challenge. Now that we actually want to cool off its mysteriously broken again, making us question the existence of this repairman.
But I digress, for many of you reading this, fall will bring your first semester of college, and while we at The Eagle are sure you are completely killing every course and class your taking, you are probably sick of hearing advice about how to survive your first week away at college. How to get along with your roommate, how to find classes on the first day, or how to get a library card. People love giving advice to new college students; step outside your dorm room and see how long it takes for someone to hand you a pamphlet on the dangers of premarital drinking.
While none of this advice is bad, it is fairly basic. I could tell you how good it will be for you to study an hour every night that you are at college and how it will do wonders for your grades. But I prefer the more honest approach, if you don’t want to study, you are probably not going to, no matter how blatantly your teachers, your parents or this newspaper tells you to. So here is advice on things that you may actually do and haven’t already been told or thought of.
4. Mix instant coffee and instant ramen for a quick burst of energy, a full belly and the absolute most disgusting vomit the human body is capable of producing. Now that you›re 18, you only have a few years in which to pound your body full of toxic crap without noticing the consequences. Make the most of that.
3. Treat intoxication like a class. No we aren’t advising that you spend an hour getting wasted for every hour you spend studying or in class, although we’re sure that some of you will do that very thing regardless of our advise.
Still, make sure you study anything that has the potential to alter your mindset or change one of your crucial beliefs. And yes, that does include any videos you decide to stream from Youtube or anything that your roommate decides you should smell just because he just discovered it in the space below his bed.
2 . 90% of college is just showing up. Seriously. It’s actually kind of terrifying and hugely disheartening to the people who care about education, but you’re way more than halfway there if you just get to class on time every day. It will be a challenge, but having made it this far you should have a handle on how to make it through to the other side. Textbooks, index cards, Dewey decimals, naughty librarians; all that’s important. But there’s really only one trick you need to know for the school bit. Care, just have enough drive to actually do something about it. Care enough to do the homework, care enough to go to class.
Yes, that sounds simple but after a night of drinks and boasts, it won’t seem so simple. When you wake up with your head splitting and your eyes bloodshot, every excuse will start to come to you why it’s a good idea for you to skip class. “I’ll just read the textbook later tonight to catch up,” you’ll say, telling yourself you learn better from the text anyways or thinking that you don’t have enough caffeine in your bloodstream to understand anything that the professor says and just like that, the lies begin to stack one upon the other. Suddenly the next class is there, your textbook lays untouched and you sit there like a monkey, watching the humans signing words that you don’t understand, growing frustrated and desperately wanting a banana.
And then another night of boasts comes and goes, and you miss another class – deliberately this time, because you can’t keep up – and you promise yourself, “but this time I’ll really catch up.” You›d be surprised at the number of lies you can tell yourself about why you shouldn›t go to class.
1. Reinvent yourself. We at The Eagle understand that the majority of our readers are rather fond of themselves and we think that is great. Nothing is better than self esteem and liking who you are, after all you’ve spent the past 18-19 (others more) years of your life becoming the fine person sitting on their chair reading this article.
Yes, we think that you are just great for doing that. But the biggest tip that we have for you is how to reinvent yourself. No you don’t need to be different, but you probably will be, in fact, you’ll probably want to be. You’re at a unique stage in life. Up to this point, you’ve had parents and teachers and the courts to protect you from all your bad decisions. A lot of what you are now is what they’ve made you to be, but from now on, you’ll be who you make yourself to be.
