Helpful Hints: how to be a successful college freshman

(originally appeared in the September 5, 2004 issue of the Advance Titan)


If I know you, you're awkward and stupid; thus, adjusting to college life might take you as many as four years, and by that time you're already halfway through finishing college. But if you follow this advice, you'll be the "big man on campus" in no time!



  • Your community advisor, or "CA," is the person who will be calling the polie on you when they discover your passed-out and vomit-covered body in the hallway. Make sure you get to know your "CA" now, so that when that actually happens it won't be quite so awkward.

  • Make sure you only sign up for afternoon classes; if you sign up to take any course that starts before noon, you will oversleep and miss it. If there are no afternoon classes that you can take, drop out of school.

  • Textbooks are very expensive. Instead of shelling out a small fortune to buy your books, go to the library and check out those books. IF the library doesn't have the exact books that you need, then check-out the closest ones you can. It's not like an actual math textbook is going to help you any more with your math class than a biography on female-bodybuilder Rachel Mathias.

  • Living with a roommate is fun, but it can also get tense at times. If you and your roommate ever have an argument, resolve the situation by marking your terroritory all over his or her bed. That will show your roommate who's boss.

  • According to pop-up ads, you can get a college education over the internet. It only takes a few hours a week and it's as good as a regular degree! So what the hell are you doing here? The internet!

  • Be aware of the "freshman fifteen;" the infamous weight gain that affects new college students who are on their own for the first time. You can counteract the effects by regularly eating at the commons, which not only provides students with useful information about the "freshman fifteen," but also serves food that will discourage you from eating and encourage you to vomit.

  • Make sure you take very thorough notes in all of your classes. That way you'll have a lot of stuff to not study when you spend the entire week before an exam on a bender.

  • Lots of people see the ground-breaking film "Animal House" and assume that that's what college life is like. Well those people are wrong. Instead, expect college to be like a mind-numbingly boring, several-hour long Ken Burns documentary. Not only is it good to have very low expectations, but you might actually watch a Ken Burns documentary in one of your classes. Have fun!






The only things I have are my intellectual property and mycollection of plastic souvenir cups from Taco Bell commemorating the release of "Batman Returns."  So if you steal the former well then I might just have to kill himself.  Everything on this site is copyright Chris Becker, except for the pictures I stole and then Photoshopped the crap out of.  If for some bizarre reason you want to reprint any of  bullplop written here, or just want to send me any death threats or marriage proposals, contact Chris Becker at beckec89(at)uwosh(dot)edu.