I know the point of a college tour is to convince prospective students that college is the place they should spend the next four years. For that reason, colleges go through an extensive selection process when they're picking tour guides. Honestly, for me, the tour I went on at Florida State was what sold it to me, and it's the reason that I'm here. Tour guides are meant to sell you the school. They don't lie, but they gloss over the truth. I think there should be an honest tour, given by seniors who tell you the truth about the places you're going to be spending the next four years of your young adult life. If I were giving a tour, as a second-semester and almost graduated senior, it would go a little something like this:
Wescott Fountain
Our first stop is this iconic fountain, and it's the perfect photo op. On your 21st birthday your friends will throw you in and if you're as clumsy as me you will slip and fall and slide to the bottom. Your drunk friends will let you try to climb to the top and you will remember none of it, but you have the pictures to prove it.
Basement Floor of Strozier Library
If you look to your left, you will see the long row of computers where I sat my freshman year and cried because my brother texted me while I was studying for a God awful pre-calculus exam and all I wanted to do was go home and see my family. You will hate this place and miss your dog and question your major but you will survive. You will pass that pre-calculus test.
Third Floor of Strozier Library
To your right are a few study rooms that students use, and in a few of them, I spent every night one week studying with my best friends until three in the morning for the LSAT. And by studying, I mean we spent most of the night messing with the projector in the room and talking about the JonBenet Ramsey Case. It was a nightmare of a week but it's one of my favorite memories.
My sorority house
This wonderful house you see in front of you is where I have spent a majority of my time the past three years, and where I have been lucky enough to live with my best friends just down the hall. It's where the fire alarm has woken me up multiple times at 2 in the morning for no reason, and the wifi never works and I have to share a bathroom with 30 other girls, but it's home. When I didn't live here I still slept on the couches and ate all the bagels. But they love me anyways.
Madison Social
A Tallahassee staple, you will waste all the money you don't have here to get a t-shirt you can brag about. Once all your friends turn 21, you will spend more time there than you previously thought possible and you will feel old. You will buy pancakes that cost $12 because you want a good picture for your Instagram, and avoid going there on nights you don't want to be facey. You will go to at least one trivia night and be pissed when you don't win, convinced that it's rigged. You will miss it when you're gone.
My freshman dorm room
Take a look inside this germ infested 4X4 room you will share with a total stranger. If you're lucky enough, that stranger will become one of your best friends. She will hold the trashcan next to your bed while you cry because you are a dumb freshman who took five shots of vodka in under ten minutes and you're a mess. She will watch The Office with you on Saturday afternoons when it rains and won't yell at you for coming home at 3 am and turning all the lights on.
We hope FSU is the place you decide to spend your college years. Take it from us, you won't regret it.
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