Welcome to WashU! You’ve successfully survived the long haul of high school, and we’re so excited you’re here. Look, I get this is an especially busy time for you: There are dorm decorations to buy, roommates to stalk on Instagram, attacks of preemptive homesickness to combat, and sentimental last-summer hangouts with friends to attend. Even reading this far — that’s a good twenty seconds gone! So I’ll cut to the chase: Here are 30 of the hard-fought pieces of advice and knowledge I wish I had known, condensed into the most rapid-fire format possible, for the Class of 2030. Ready? Let’s go!

1. Office hours are for homework help and gabbing with your professors about anything and everything. Make an effort to go to them! 
2. Don’t stack your semester with more than three really heavy academic classes.
3. You have until February of your sophomore year to choose a major. If you decide to change it, you’ll be in good and plentiful company. 
4. Take Vitamin C and ginger tea for the frat flu. 
5. You’ll do more walking than you think. 
6. It is a rule of the universe that you will never end the semester with a perfect number of meal points, but the Gold Plan is a good bet. 
7. You’re an adult — you don’t need to ask to use the bathroom in class or raise your hand during discussion seminars. In that vein, you can skip classes (without sending really gross pictures of your broken ankle to your TA as proof), but it’s a dangerous path to start on. 
8. Propping your door open may just lead to making awkward eye contact with everyone who walks by, rather than true friendship, but it might be worth a shot anyway. 
9. Talk to your roommates before small issues become big problems. 
10. Exams are important, but so are attendance points and assignments. 
11. Throwing up makes you feel better far quicker than trying to tough out hangover nausea. 
12. Everyone else is just as nervous as you are. 
13. You’ll find yourself squabbling with your parents a lot this summer, which will peak during move-in, then devolve into mushy feelings right before you part ways; give them and yourself grace. 
14. Wait until after the first week of class to buy your course materials. 
15. Pack for winter snowstorms and 90 degree humidity. 
16. Don’t shit-talk the Midwest or St. Louis — it’s your home for the next four years. Also, the “I got rejected from my first-choice college, so I ended up here” conversation gets old fast. 
17. Have a picnic blanket and a speaker, or make friends with someone who does. 
18. Come to peace with the fact that your packages will probably get delayed at the mailroom at the most inopportune time. You won’t get notified about letters, but if you don’t pick them up within three days, they’ll get sent back. 
19. Get a UPass to ride the Metro for free. 
20. Write professional emails, complete with the “I hope you’re doing well,” even — especially! — if you don’t really know each other like that. 
21. Get a free flu and COVID-19 shot. 
22. Know that “midterms season” is a misnomer in that it implies a start and end date; midterms actually start a few weeks into the semester and continue throughout the rest of the term. 
23. Call home.
24. Apply for awards, even if you don’t think you’ll get them. 
25. Stop checking LinkedIn — it’ll just make you miserable. 
26. Study in buildings you’ve never been in.
27. Campus is not as flat as you might believe — take that into consideration if you’re looking to bring any form of wheeled transportation.
28. Eat your veggies.
29. Believe in yourself and your right to be here. 
30. College goes by fast; take things slow. 

We can’t wait to see all the amazing things you accomplish during your time here. Good luck, and we’ll be rooting for you all the way through.