I received a lot of advice before coming to college – friends, relatives, neighbor’s brother’s uncle’s best friend’s girlfriend’s dogs all felt the need to share their best words of wisdom before I embarked on this major life adventure. Some of it was worthless, some it was weird, and some of it was priceless.

So when I was asked to join the chorus of advice-givers, I thought carefully about my freshmen year and the lessons my friends and I wish we had known before it all began. Here is the list of greatest hits:

1. If you are a neat freak and your roommate is, well, not, resist the urge to position your beds into an L-shape. Your messy roommate’s stuff will magically expand into the center of your room and you will want to cry. Divide the room in two equal halves and you will keep your roommate’s sky-high sock piles away from your meticulously color-coded desk organizers.

2. Buy the smallest freshman meal plan. Most freshmen end up with tons of extra points at the end of the year and, even if you need more, it’s cheaper to add them later. Of course, feel free to ignore this advice and make friends by feeding upperclassmen.

3. Use the Writing Center, Cornerstone, Career Center, tutors in your ResCollege, professor’s office hours and all other academic resources available to you. There are a lot of people on this campus who want to help you get good grades and succeed.

4. Same goes for the non-academic resources on campus. Whether it’s your RA, Uncle Joe’s, Student Health, religious leader, or even a trusted friend, don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.

5. If you are really set on a major after two semesters, declare early and take advantage of the resulting advising and massive flood of departmental e-mails about upcoming events and internship opportunities.

6. Another thought about majors – you only need one. Given that most WU students acquire majors almost as readily as free t-shirts, I might be missing something here. I believe, however, that in the real world, your four extra majors will be generally unnecessary.

7. When you stay up all night writing a paper, do not go to sleep until AFTER you turn it in. Trust me on this one.

8. Frozen waffles are not really meant to be microwaved.

So that’s it. The best advice I can give you. True, advice about frozen waffles, furniture arrangements and major requirements may not be particularly profound, but it is the most useful advice I’ve got.

I can assure you that I am learning a lot more in college than simply the odd lessons contained above and those listed on my course syllabi. It would do little good, however, to list those lessons here.

That’s because one of the most important lessons I am learning is that my life will not and need not follow the simple, straight line I’ve tried to lay out for myself. No matter how much good advice we receive, we have to make a few of our own mistakes.

All of the ink in the world will not help you learn your alcohol tolerance as well as one bad hangover. Bold headlines about the freshman fifteen will not send you to the gym as quickly as the number on the scale over Thanksgiving weekend. Being in college means having the freedom, safety and responsibility to figure out these life lessons for yourself.

So instead of life lessons, I offer you a few wise tips and wish you the best of luck. Enjoy the ride.

No Comments Yet

You can be the first to comment!

 Print This Post

Tags: advice, college, freshman year, roommate

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Forum, Staff Columnists. You can follow any responses to this entry through this feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.