Hey Freshman! I know you've probably been given countless pieces of advice about how to "survive" freshman year by now, but I'm sure these few tips aren't the ones you've been hearing for the past few months. Yes, that other advice is important to; so don't forget what you been told previously. Hopefully this advice will help you not only to stay safe your first year being away from home, but also have the most memorable year of your life.
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1: Don’t trust ANYBODY you meet on Tinder
As far as meeting people there are many ways to do so in college; you can join clubs, go to campus events, go out to the popular college bars, or in this generation we have this amazing thing called the Internet. Tinder is a great tool for college kids to find people to hangout with or “Netflix and Chill.” IF you do go out to meet a Tinder boy or girl, bring a friend or multiple friends. It sounds like it defeats the purpose of Tinder, but when you’re heading out to someone’s beach house at 2am on a Monday night you might want to think about dragging a friend along. Who knows, you may end up at a five story townhouse, with a group of high school boys pretending they’re in college and get locked in an elevator… So just don’t trust the people you meet on Tinder.
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2: Be best friends with your roommate- they just might save your life
Whether your roommate is a friend from home, you knew them before school, or you just met them on move-in day, build an everlasting relationship with them. They will always be the one you walk home to after a rough day in class, go study with you at the library until it closes, and obviously they’ll be the one to make sure you get home safe after a blurry Halloween night in a frat house. If you’re lucky enough to have that roommate, they will be sure to clean your puke out of a bucket in an Uber on the way home, put your phone on airplane mode so you stop calling and texting your exes, and make sure you somehow end up safely in your bed. After all of that there is no way to ever fully thank your roommate, all you can really do is bring them home Panera Mac & Cheese one night and let them control the Netflix remote.
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3: Find someone other than your roommate to go out with you
Your roommate will have other friends and cannot always go out with you; that’s where your next best friend comes in. This person will always be down to go out no matter what occasion, where, or when; just shoot them a quick text and they’ll show up at your door half an hour later ready to go. You’ll end up going through a lot with this person; jumping fences to escape a shut-down house party, getting lost in the city while trying to find the bar, or maybe they’ll even dance in a cardboard trash box with you during the year’s biggest Pirate celebration. When you find this person hold onto them, even if they transfer to another school across the country.
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4: Always, always, ALWAYS double check that you locked your door
I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but actually take this piece of advice to heart. Typically you won’t have to worry about anyone going in to steal anything because everyone else already has a MacBook and Beats speakers; you should really be worried about sleepwalkers across the hall. We all know that sometimes in the middle of the night you just have to get out of bed and go to the bathroom, but most of us wake up for that. If you forget to lock your door one night don’t be alarmed if you wake up to the boy across the hall peeing in the corner of your room… He could be a sleepwalker and you just never knew it. Save the sleepwalkers in your hall the embarrassment of being woken up at 3am by Campus Safety and double check that you locked your door.
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5: Become really close with at least one of your professors
Face it, you know you’re actually sent to college to go to class, learn, and study. So why not build a solid relationship with at least one of your professors each semester. How to do this? Put in a little extra effort into your work, stay late and ask questions, show up to office hours just to talk, or even challenge them in class and create discussion. Professors are actually pretty cool people with some awesome stories to tell- hopefully some of them will end up telling you about the time they had long hair, never went to college so they could travel with their band, and their experiences with recreational substances. It never hurts you (or your grade) to take twenty minutes out of your day to knock on their office door and get help or just talk. It actually ends up being very beneficial because they may ask to use your essay as an example in future classes, curve your grade from an 88.9 to a 90.0, or even let you take your final a week early.
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6: Resist the temptation of late night, post-study meals
The freshman 15 is REAL guys! Don’t let the post study munchies get to you, because they will be tempting; especially since you now live on a campus with late night food or even in a city with 24/7 delivery. College is a great new experience because you all of a sudden have all of these food options instead of just the one meal that was put on your plate at home. Definitely take advantage of these options, but don’t go overboard. Try to stick to one Dairy Queen Blizzard a week instead of one every night and limit yourself to Chick-Fil-A on only certain days of the month. Use the campus gym! You want your GPA to go up, not the scale.
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Have a great first year, you freshy's! I hope this advice will give you some insight into the next few months; and if you can't remember this entire list here's a nice little saying to wrap it all up:
Get lit, stay fit, and study a bit.
Good luck!
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