If you’re like me, a freshman faced with the sinking reality of adulting, never fear! I have taken the liberty of compiling all the basic beginner college information that may come in handy in future situations, both generally and Vassar-specific.
1. Making Friends
Perhaps the most daunting feeling of moving to college and thus entirely rearranging the syntax of your life is the looming question: Where will I belong? Yet all attempts at socialization fail you. Several rounds of typical name games and bland icebreaker questions later, you still can’t remember where your roommate is from. Someone you met on the first day approaches you and says, “Hi!” and you say, “Hi, I’m ____!” and they say, “Yes, we’ve met five times!” and you say, “Shucks, well, you’re just that forgettable!” Then about three minutes into the conversation, you work up the nerve to say, “Sorry, remind me your name again?” And you know damn well you still won’t remember it.
I have thus composed more stimulating, thoroughly non-controversial icebreaker questions that may weed out the simpletons and compile a circle of kindred spirits who really get where you’re coming from.
- Do you or do you not watch Fox News?
- Tell me your thoughts on J.K. Rowling!
- Have you committed arson lately?
- Wanna take a bath with me?
Once you’ve entered the flow state of conversation—which, no doubt, you have, because the questions I have provided are flawless—you will then be tasked with establishing a method of ongoing communication. That is to say, you will ask for their number and/or their socials. This is a common challenge among the socially awkward. So, I have compiled some basic tips for texting people.
Text your new friend constantly, even when they don’t respond. If they absolutely ghost you, that means they’re so in awe that they can’t even fathom how they’d possibly conceive a response. They’ve left you on read? Text anyway! Can’t hurt. The worst thing that could happen is you annoying the shit out of them.
New friends love when you reach out to them, especially at 3 a.m. Make sure to wake them up. Request their location. Follow them on Letterboxd. Go to the farthest extent to irk them. The sky’s the limit! They’ll love it. Trust me.
2. Fizz
For those of you who are not familiar with Fizz, it is the national college-edition app meant to emulate The New York Times, except, rather than being distributed in tangible newspaper form, it is made digitally accessible to promote community, wholesome conversational blogging and pure objectivity. A freshman’s number one mistake is falling under the impression that Fizz is nothing but a waste of storage on their phone and a waste of time in their lives. Wrong! Querying on Fizz is bound to equip you with the most accurate, up-to-date, chaste assortment of facts and insightful answers.
“Fizz is probably the most helpful resource I’ve found since I came to Vassar,” commented Lucy Wright ’30. “My professor was so impressed with my research on the app that he changed the rubric of our essay so that Fizz was the only acceptable information portal. Britannica is so last year.”
Wright’s sentiment is seemingly reflected among the wider Vassar community, as more and more students have utilized Fizz in a diverse accumulation of scenarios, including citations for research papers and labeling the app as “The New Metcalf.”
3. Navigating Workload
A substantial feature of acclimating to college is navigating the workload—a crucial shift from the “recommended” reading of 12th grade to higher education’s tsunami of necessary reading. Your success as a college student lies not only in your time management, but your ability to divide and conquer. So I have devised some tips for adjusting to the workload.
Firstly, avoid the perilous temptation of the cell phone. Library study sessions are most efficient when your phone is safely out of reach. This way, you can text, doomscroll and be massively unproductive on your laptop rather than your phone, but your fingers’ illusion of rapid-fire typing presents the fantasy to your neighbors that you are commendably locked in.
Secondly, time management. Here’s a snippet of my daily schedule:
3 to 4 p.m.: Update my Google Calendar to create a false sense of productivity.
4 to 5 p.m.: Realize that I just spent the last hour organizing my time rather than doing anything.
5 to 6 p.m.: Realize that I just spent the last hour contemplating my life decisions rather than doing anything.
6 to 7 p.m.: Dinner!
7 to 8 p.m.: Where was I?
8 to 9 p.m.: I’m feeling kind of tired. Guess I’ll do my work tomorrow!
See, it’s all about prioritization.
4. Feeling Chopped
The blessing and the curse: hallway huzz. This may seem, at a glance, to be a gift from the heavens, possibly a bestowment of the highest sort of celestial praise, graced with your campus crush just a mere few doors down from you. Then you come to the realization that hallway huzz involves not only a stalker-ish level of distraction, but a doctrine dictating thou shall not be chopped as hell in the morning.
Are you faced with this problem? The answer is simple. Set your alarm to wrench you from your beauty sleep at the crack of dawn. Tiptoe to the bathroom, do your thing. Retreat to your dorm. Sacrifice the remaining hours of morning kneeling by your door, awaiting the promising slam of the other door from down the hall. Here’s your moment: gallivant into the hall with your pre-fixed face and nonchalantly sidle past them to take a shower. Perhaps, having now been subjected to the adornment of beauty you so discreetly evoked that morning, they’ll consider it an invitation.
This is the simplest way to evade feeling chopped: Convince others that you’re not. Remember, the only thing that truly matters is the way other students perceive you!
I hope these basic tips have relatively appeased the trials of navigating your new college campus. If you have any questions, concerns or malignant thoughts, please do not hesitate to reach out. I am available remotely (jstalin@vassar.edu) or physically in the Raymond basement.