Welcome to Brown, y’all. You’ve officially walked through the Van Wickle gates and you’re a college kid now. You’re slightly nervous and you’re highly intimidated by all the cool seniors (e.g. yours truly), but you seem to be having a good time so far. Wish you had a little more knowledge? Here are some things I wish I knew:
- Yes, you do look like freshmen. Everyone knows you’re a freshman, probably. Don’t worry about it. In a couple weeks you’ll look a little less excited and a little more tired. You’ll start blending in with the rest of us soon enough.
- You’ll definitely sound less like a freshman when you start calling them “professors” and not “teachers”.
- Don’t schedule your classes like you did in high school. It’s not about trying to find the classes that will suck the least. It’s about finding things you actually want to learn about. Don’t waste your first semester taking things you think your parents would like to hear about. I did. It was silly.
- If you’re a little bit interested in engineering, take ENGN0030. Take it S/NC if you want, but just get it done, in the event that you decide engineering is your one true love.
- Look up your classes on Critical Review. Take those reviews seriously. They’re useful. Also, shop TAs and stuff. How you feel about the professor matters.
- Take one class every semester that’s totally out of nowhere. If you’re taking three physics classes, take another course in Russian cinema. Mix up writing classes and math-type classes. You don’t want four weekly problem sets, and you don’t want four 20 page papers due on December 15.
- Read the BlogDailyHerald, because they’ll tell you about the free food opportunities. Also, read Post-, so that you can sound like you know things about art and music and stuff. Don’t bother with the other publications. No one ever really reads the Indy. The articles are too damn long and they’re usually about things like types of birds or abandoned railroad tunnels anyway.
- Go to frat parties. Freshmen are the only people who really enjoy them. It feels like something out of a movie. Once you’re older, you realize how annoying you used to be and how terrible the parties actually are. You don’t know that yet. Go drink watered-down jungle juice in a room with a sticky floor. (Also, go greek! Or at least consider going greek. Greek life at Brown is really really fun.)
- Find someone to talk to when you’re feeling uncertain. Find a therapist or an academic advisor or a coach or your Meiklejohn. Try meditation. Or yoga! Send That Girl Magazine an email! I don’t care. But don’t keep it all in.
- Barrett Hazeltine is great, but his classes are overrated. #sorryimnotsorry.
- Student discounts are everywhere. Find out about them before you’re a broke senior. StudentRate.com is great for figuring out where the secret deals are. CollegeBudget.com is a flash-sale site for college kids, and it’s also pretty rad.
- Early on, say hi to everybody.
- If you’re into somebody, go for it. Ask them on a date! Or just hook up with them! Do whatever you want, basically. With consent!
- Do stuff you wouldn’t otherwise do. If a strange guy wearing a plaid shirt and a hat invites you to join a gang of folks smoking hookah and playing Monopoly, say yes.
- You need to know that peer pressure doesn’t even really exist in college. No one gives a shit what you do, so if you don’t actually want to smoke hookah, just kick everyone’s ass in Monopoly.
- Stay out late. Really late. Later than you think is even close to okay. That’s when you meet people. At 4am, when you’re heartbroken (or something), wandering Keeney, singing an old Laura Marling song to yourself, a random acquaintance will invite you in, and suddenly you’ll have found your group of friends for the next four years.
- But if you need to go to bed early, go to bed early for god’s sake. And if you need to spend all evening in the library, spend all evening in the library.
- Actually use the resources! Brown has so many resources! Go to the Swearer Center and volunteer if that sounds fun to you. Go to the writing center and get help with your essays, and they’ll be better than they otherwise would be. Go to Psych Services. Go to the fancy free gym.
- Try to interact with the city of Providence. Brown isn’t it. Providence is a real city, and it’s worth checking out.
- Don’t stress about the fact that you’re uncomfortable literally all the time. You’re a college freshman. That’s what happens. In a semester or two that will take care of itself.
- Go to Duck & Bunny. Get the salad with the walnuts and apples and blue cheese. Then have a cupcake. Maybe several cupcakes. They’re excellent cupcakes.
- On that note, go to Wickenden. Eat at Angkor. Get a sandwich and bring it to India Point Park. Go to Wayland Square. Go up Hope street and find Chez Pascal’s Bistro menu (which is $35 for a three course meal, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays).
- You’re going to burn some bridges freshman year. Everyone acts about 150% bitchier when they’re stressed, and everybody is inordinately stressed freshman year, so you’ll get into some pretty stupid fights. You’ll regret approximately half of these lost friendships. Those people were actually pretty okay. The other half can fuck themselves.
- The first time someone gets too drunk, everyone will think they’re dying. They’re not! But take care of them. How? Give them water, get them into bed, and if you think they’re really in trouble, call health services.
- On that note, water is your friend. In general. You’re probably dehydrated.
- Be a social butterfly as much as you can. Your freshman friends might be the friends you keep for the rest of college (or even the rest of your life). The odds of this are greatly increased if you try to meet a ton of people freshman year. Then sophomore year you can narrow them down to the ones with whom you actually have things in common.
- Learn to love the Ratty. Do the Ratty Challenge at least once while at Brown.
- On that note, please stop moving your tables together at the Ratty. It’s inefficient use of seating space. Two tables smashed together can only comfortably seat twelve people, but then you all insist on cramming sixteen chairs into the damn thing anyway. The worst part is that such monstrous uber-tables are rarely even full. This makes me so annoyed. You’re ivy league students. You can figure this out. I’ve even drawn a diagram (that’s how you know I take something seriously).
- Go to at least one naked party while you’re here. They’re an experience, whether you decide you’re into it or not.
- Figure out which liquor store doesn’t care about your fake ID. As soon as possible. Hint: It’s not on Thayer.
- Get a Spicy With. Spend a ton of time at Jo’s (or at the Gate, I guess, if you’re a Pembroke person). You will make more memories there than you will at the aforementioned frat parties. Get in weird arguments with near-strangers about the relative merits of leprechauns and quakers. (Quakers are real, but leprechauns have magic. Tie.)
- Bring a sweater to the SciLi. It’s always too cold.
- Don’t get into a relationship super fast. Especially if it’s with someone who lives down the hall. That will get awkward.
- It’s okay not to keep up with everyone else when you’re drinking. And definitely don’t try to go shot-for-shot with a guy on the crew team.
- Try to take at least one Literary Arts workshop. Even if you don’t think it’s your thing, try out playwriting or digital art or some such tomfoolery.
- Call something heteronormative unironically at least once.
- Be accused of being a hipster. Deny it.
- Go hard on spring weekend. You don’t know about Dave Binder yet, but you will soon enough.
- Don’t try to change who you are to get people to like you. You’re in college. Better yet, you’re at Brown. This is the most welcoming environment you’ll ever find. The sooner you figure that out, the more you’ll love it here. And I promise, you’ll love it here.
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