Everyone has that "thing" that makes your teeth cringe and hair stand up on your skin. Yes, I’m talking about pet peeves.     

As a college student, you are surrounded by thousands of strangers who you either have a lot in common with or nothing at all. It’s hard to mix all those personalities without some sort of frustration. Although the list of my pet peeves ranges from 100 second-long Snapchat stories to people smacking their lips while eating, these are some other pet peeves that always seem to haunt me:

1. Bikers 

No matter if I’m driving around campus or walking to class, there’s just something that doesn’t sit right with me. The aggressive bike riders who think they are professional NASCAR drivers rather than bike riders need to chill out around campus. I understand that everyone is in a rush to make it to your next class, but fearing that a biker is going to plow me over is frightening. I can’t count how many times I’ve walked to class and heard “watch out” or “heads up” from a biker. I’m sorry, you should share the sidewalk with everyone and slow down while riding to class. I'm tired of fearing an injury while walking to class every day. 

 2. Lecture Halls

Sitting in a three-hundred person lecture hall with complete strangers only inches apart from one another just grinds my gears, especially during the winter season when everyone is coughing their lungs out, making it nearly impossible to hear the professor speak. Or how difficult it is for some people to share an armrest with you (you get one armrest, not TWO). Or maybe it’s when you’re on the edge of your seat ready to leave class, when the professor asks if anyone has any questions and everyone in the front row raises their hands to ask questions that are clearly answered on the syllabus. Come on, you are the only one that cares about the answers to those questions, so stop wasting my time.   

3.  Restrooms

You know what they say, there’s no such thing as a dumb question. But I find that saying quite false when it comes to waiting in lines at a bar or lecture hall building restroom in college. When someone asks me if I’m in line for the women’s bathroom while I’m clearly standing inside of the women’s restroom will always irritate me. No, I just enjoy standing aimlessly in a disgusting bathroom for fun. OF COURSE I'm in line! Even the conversations and “friendships” built while waiting in line in a bathroom on the weekends is annoying. Surely that is not my usual place to pick up a best friend during a night out, but everyone seems to be overly friendly and overly caring about your life. So to my recent bathroom best friends, I hope you guys are having a terrific day!  

4. Group Projects

The reasons why group projects are a necessary component to my academic achievement will always puzzle me. It is evident when most of us graduate from college that we will be working in teams with groups of people. But practicing for the real world and using group projects as an excuse is inconvenient. It is typical that students are assigned to an average of four group members who are also strangers. The awkward confrontations of deciding what meeting times fit everyone’s schedules and knowing your grade in the class relies heavily on your group members' work. And once the project ends, the group text between the project members progressively leads into what everyone’s plans are for the weekend. No thanks.