August 23 is right around the corner, but pause your mental packing lists.

We're just weeks away from the start of another promising semester. As you begin to roll out the suitcases and stuff them with unnecessary amounts of shoes, pictures and school supplies, take a moment to remember all of the baggage that you don’t want following you back to GW. You spent the last few months without them all, and the thought of again encountering them on a daily basis is nothing, but annoying.  Here are the five things we all need to make an effort to ditch when we set foot on campus.

1. Yik Yak

The infamous app gave us its fair share of laughs and helped us procrastinate during finals, but it’s time to ditch the yak culture. What started off as a sort of anonymous and pretty hilarious Twitter feed developed into a blatant tool of cyber bullying. The problem with the app’s anonymity is that it allows anyone to say anything they please, without seeing the consequence. Filled with threats, sexual harassment, and verbal abuse, the once stress-relieving Yak feed is now a stress causer. By the end of last semester, students were frantically checking the app to make sure that they and their friends weren’t the latest joke. Luckily, returning home for the summer showed us that there was a yakless way life. Plenty of other campuses have yet to be invaded by the app, and many friends from home have never heard of it. With its lack of popularity away from school, the app’s feed in our hometown became nothing but disappointing. Outside of GW, Yik-Yak has a very quiet presence, and we should continue to suppress it as we migrate back to Foggy in August. 

2. Yog outfits

Times when it is okay to wear work out clothes as an outfit: you are working out; you are walking to go work out; you are grabbing a Sweetgreen feast post-working out; it’s winter and it’s really cold and you overslept your alarm and have one morning class to run to… but just this once; you are pulling an all-nighter in Gelman (which is basically a work out). Not in any of these situations? Then take off your Lulu leggings, neon trainers, and spandex tank, put on actual clothing, and accept that you are now in college and you’re kind of a real person. Denying this and thinking that head-to-toe moisture-wicking fabric counts as a normal, everyday outfit is not right and is why Urban Outfitters and Ann Taylor now think that they can make special “sporty” clothing lines that aren’t actual work-out gear, but are just made to look like it.  Please, you are worth the extra effort. Even that hoodie you bought from the bookstore during C.I. is a better option. We all understand that GW is a pretty intense environment, but you want to fool us all and appear like you can breeze on through it all. That is the talent of a true Colonial -- faking it. 

3. J Street 

It’s established: GW kids want everything about this place gone. Having leftover J Street money as a sophomore is misleading, because it really means that you were ahead of the game and avoided the place, as much as you could, freshman year. If any of us have to pop in for a quick snack between classes, fine. It’s not going to kill us. But, if you’re spending every other meal there, then something’s up. No one’s really missed the place’s chunky mac n cheese and “Chinese” food. We all deserve to binge eat better -- like at Whole Foods, where it’s okay to treat yourself to three trays of sushi because they were made in front of you, thus, fresh and healthy. Is that entire box of chocolate caramels organic and fairly traded? 

4. #blackout 

We’ve all had those wild nights out with our favorite people, and some pretty great stories and Instagram-worthy snaps to share from it. That’s completely fine and normal and we should, by all means, post away. What none of us should be sharing, though, is how wasted we may have been. It’s not something that needs to be advertised.  Especially, when we’re all told countless times that our social profiles are like bait to future employers and even to the school. When we post something distasteful to social media, we harm ourselves and take risks, such as possibly losing an internship opportunity or leadership role. If you’re part of a larger organization, whether it's Greek life or clubs, or sports, then you also put those around you at risk. Don’t be the one who gets your group suspended because of a post on social media. When it comes to social media, don’t rage and engage. Just be smart. 

LOSL: Lack of sisterly love

This one’s for the srat stars. A little competition is a healthy competition, but in the sorority world, it’s easy for the little things to get carried away. It's never a bad thing to be proud of your letters and show it. But, we freak out when Barstool gives a shout out to a different chapter, and then aggressively post our chapter’s tumblr link wherever we can. We take it personally if another house’s crush party theme is a little too close to that one we held last year. We get upset at the little jabs thrown into philanthropy videos, even though every chapter participates in this game.  

If we all resist the urge to indulge in these five campus faux pas, then we’re five steps closer to making this semester the best one, yet.