Just Enjoy Your Freshman Year, You Lucky Bastards
By Alex Jakle
Staff Writer

Well kids, this is it, you made it to the show. Congratulations, I hope you enjoyed the previews. But I know what you’re thinking: what now? What do I do now that I no longer have to get straight A’s, join every club and be named Mr. Olympia so I can get into college? It’s a toughie, I know (except I didn’t get every A, and joined like two clubs. Also I was impeached as sophomore class VP, but that’s really neither here nor there). So here they are, the Top Ten Ways to Enjoy Your Freshman Year, a must read for all Frosh and a good brush up for the rest of you.

First: appreciate the weather. There are only three schools ranked above us on the U.S. News and Weekly World Report’s list of top liberal arts colleges, and all of them get lots of snow. Suckers. Those of you who wish you were at Harvard, or Yale, or Amherst or wherever, first of all, get over it. Second, when you are here in late January and tanning on Wig beach, rethink it. You made the right decision, remember that. In fact, gloat. If you have friends at East coast schools, email them the weather report from sunny Claremont, CA.

Second: go to the beach. In the same vein, you are less than an hour away from the fabled beaches of Los Angeles. Learn to surf. Go tan yourselves and swim around just because you can, and do it with a smile. The only thing you can do in the Atlantic Ocean during the winter is go harpooning.

Third: go to sporting events. How many times in your life will you get to yell, in all seriousness, “Let’s go Hens”? So many people in this world do not get this pleasure, you owe it to them. Plus, you probably know the people on the court

Fourth: know your professors. I know you have been told a dozen times that you can go out to lunch with your professors at Pomona, but I have another idea: actually do it. Surprisingly enough, they want to talk to you and you can learn a lot from them.
Trust me, it’s worth it. If you buy, they may even give you some dirt on DQ.

Fifth: appreciate your freedom. The bonds have been cut, guys; you are out on your own (except for that $37,000 a year that your parents may be paying to put you here.) Your parents now only know what you choose to tell them. This will be a learning experience; you will make mistakes and you will do stupid things. This is the last time in your life it will be socially acceptable to drink heavily twice a week (unless you become a dean), and you will probably get drunk and/or sick more than a few times. Life goes on and you will have great stories to tell for the rest of your life (if you’re anything like me, you will also ruin any chance you ever had to run for public office with compromising photos: ask a sophomore.)

Sixth: respect your responsibility. You call the shots now, and that’s probably new. So it will be tough and you may or may not end up ruining clothes because you have no idea how to do laundry or coming to the conclusion after a month of experimentation that a person cannot, in fact, live exclusively on Lucky Charms and Dr. Pepper. It’s your life, just make sure that you’re safe (but not too safe) -- live near the edge, not on it -- and that you learn from all the mistakes you make and all that stupid stuff you do.

Seventh: love the bubble. Anthony D’ Souza is a wise man, so heed his words: this is not real life, this is Pomona. You go to a school that serves ice cream everyday and sponsors an event in December for which the chocolate budget is just under $10,000. We’re spoiled. Take advantage of it.

Eighth: acknowledge the bubble. Living in the bubble is fine as long as you know it’s there. Don’t be in a hurry to get out to the real world, but know that it’s waiting and is not as forgiving as the next four years will be. Keep a worldly perspective; you are very lucky people. Remember every day how lucky you are and think about what you can do to help those who need it.

Ninth: appreciate your peers. Boy, how sick are you of hearing how incredible your class is? I for one am nauseous. But you will never again be around so many young, ambitious, smart and interesting people. I kid you not, getting to know as many of them as possible will be the best part of your freshman year. None of you are the best at everything and a very select few of any of us are the best at anything. Only one of you is actually the smartest person in your class, and it’s not you. Learn from these people -- most of what you learn in college will be in your halls between 11 and 3 at night, except on weekends when anything you learn between those hours you probably will not remember.

Tenth: appreciate yourself. There is a good chance that these four years will do more to shape who you become than any other four years of your life. And given that there are people here who are better than you at almost everything, it is important to try a lot of new things so you can find something no one else does and corner the market. This will be a time of finding out who you are, and then changing completely. Embrace it. Never, ever take yourself too seriously (it totally kills the fun), and always remember that things will turn out okay. Trust me. Now go do something productive.