Well-rounded students aren’t solely dedicated to their studies. Student Government Association, Residential Hall Association, University Programing Council, and over 100 other active student organizations work hard to give peers an exceptional college experience. However, not every student has the #ULGetInvolved mentality.

Whether an organization’s goal is to raise awareness for an important cause, collect funds, or bring students closer together, most 18 to 20-somethings need incentives to show up to anything (there’s a reason the 3-day absence rule exists). That’s why if you’re planning to throw an event on campus, you better at least be sure to leave room in the budget for complimentary cookies and lemonade. College students love FREE STUFF!

No employee of UL Lafayette is more beloved than Angelina Narcisse. The 94-year-old campus celebrity has been serving meals at the university for over 60 years. This motherly character with a bubbly disposition warms every student’s heart. She loves to talk to us about our studies, our aspirations, if not just how our day is going.

Narcisse was even featured on “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” in 2016 for the positive impact she has on students. Be warned, though. Narcisse only likes to serve a well-balanced plate. Don’t be surprised if she makes a little bit of a fuss if you ask for no vegetables.

If there is one thing Cypress Lake Dinning Room does right, it’s cookies. Unfortunately, chocolate-chip, triple chocolate, snicker doodle, and sugar are always the first to go. And when they get placed on the dessert bar, they go fast.

Toward the end of lunch, this leaves nothing but trays upon trays of oatmeal cookies no one is going to touch. It makes you question why they keep serving this awful, dry, raisin-infested “dessert.” Just remember, even if it means they’ll just go to waste, DO NOT try to feed oatmeal cookies to the alligators. We don’t need to give them a reason to repeat their series of 2015-16 shenanigans.

Let’s be honest. Too many of us have spent our entire summer in the comfortable presence of air conditioning. When you’ve got nearly four months of not much to do but recover from spring semester, it’s easy to forget how brutal southern summers can be. Most of us will be a little more chipper than usual when we wake up on the first day of the 2017-18 school year.

Whether you’re excited to see friends again or just be a little closer to graduating, August 21^st is the most anticipated day of school next to the Fridays of finals. That excitement quickly ends, however, when we remember that walking from Fletcher to Old Mouton in 90 degree humidity three days a week really sucks.

It’s a scary time to be a current or future university student. Washington is debating some major cuts to Federal Student Aid programs, such as Pell Grants and low-interest loans. In Louisiana, it seems students are in a sweat every semester over rumors that TOPS is getting cut. To be fair, UL Lafayette is among the most affordable public universities in the nation, but that didn’t make the news of a 4% tuition increase for this coming semester sting any less.

In a time where memes have a shelf life of five hours tops, remember that Ragin' Spirit never dies! Have a great school year, Cajuns!