Freshman Myth Busters.

Being a fresh freshman, so to speak, I’ve come to have my expectations flopped on so many different departments that I’m starting to wonder whether Alzheimer’s is more common than I thought. It can’t be that all grownups and graduates all over the world agree to tell the same version of one universal lie to all the new undergraduates. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s bust it one myth at a time and examine how freshmen are really like..where I came from.

1. Man, college life is so promiscuous, I don’t even remember how many people I slept with..on the bus ride home. I never even got their names before I crashed..head first into the window trying to dodge their strangers’ shoulders. It all happened so fast, one thing we were sitting there thinking passionately about..what our moms cooked for lunch, the next thing we’re both wallowing in deep..zombie-like slumber. Well, we all know what they say about experimenting..with sleep positions in passenger seats. It’s good to know just how far you can bend..your neck without breaking it.
   
   
   
2. That thing about the freshman fifteen, they were right with the number and wrong with the sign. You don’t gain the freshman 15, you lose them trying to find your way around campus and later back home after you’d unfailingly taken the wrong bus for the umpteenth time.
   
   
   
3. That thing about freshmen being annoying, they’re not; they’re just lost kids, except that none of them has the balls to be a full-fledged Peter Pan.
   
   
   
4. Being a freshman doesn’t necessarily mean you’re broke and up to your ears in student loans. However, you come to learn that’s how it should be when you see how it is when it isn’t. I’m not going on a hate parade against rich kids here, I’m talking about normal kids whose parents gave enough pocket money on some sort of personal fit to even the odds that have them comfortably afford two drug dealers and still have some left over to buy lunch.
   
   
   
5. You know a freshman when you see guys lying about getting laid trying to get laid, and girls lying about eating that chocolate crepe in the deserted hallways to buy a 25-pound salad that they eat in full sight of everyone. Those same girls will later economize on water bottles and not one will have extra toilet paper or even a tissue in the ladies’ room, which brings us to the next point: the only useful appliance in the ladies’ room are not the toilets, but the mirrors.
   
   
   
6. That shit about freshmen being at their highest stimulated point of intelligence while struggling under stress, it’s not true. You’ll notice how it isn’t when you see that the only reason the Red Bull stand got any audience was because the subs were cranking with music, and the only reason the MUN booth was noticed for the first time in two days was because it was strategically placed next to the Red Bull stand, and gave away free food. Follow the glittery fedoras, come to the liiiight.
   
   
   
7. That alley were the cool kids hang, it’s not where the cool kids hang. The cool kids know better than to hang where the cool kids should hang so the other uncool kids can’t find them. And by god can they hide, I’m starting to think there are uncharted nuclear shelters on that campus that only a Marauder's Map could find. Hell, not even that, it would be hidden the same way the room of requirements is. The only difference is that you can actually find the room of requirements when you really need it, and if you really need to find out where the cool kids hang, you never will; for the same way a dog can smell fear, a senior can smell a freshman, and as it turns out, barking dogs do bite.
   
   
   
8. You’re not a freshman if you haven’t had at least two fights with college professors passionately over meaningless shit that neither of you cares about but will continue to pretend to care about just to piss each other off because that’s, THAT’S, how it should be. When you pack hormonal teenagers who never knew the meaning of freedom with overqualified college professors who never had a big break and are lamenting their lost lives by overestimating their own mediocrity in an institution that neither cares about your education nor gives enough of a fuck to follow through with the faction of the rules that it doesn’t profit from, which concern you, that’s what happens.
   
   
   
9. Saying that college days are the best days of your life is like saying test drives are the most fun you’ll have driving, gotta love them traffic cones. They’re only fun because you still don’t have enough hind sight to shed light on your own bread crumb trail yet.
   
   
   
10. Sure, you’ll know what you wanna be when you grow up, that is if they ask you that question when you’re 6.  It won’t even take a couple of seconds of hesitation, you know straight up, in all clarity, what you want to be when you grow up. Graduating from high school, you’re still fired by hormones and you feel like you can take over the world, but not quite sure how. Choosing a major, however, is another story, you pay a shitload if you wanna switch majors which makes it slightly impossible for you to change your mind without being homeless. Graduating from college, you’ll be back at square one.
    
    
    
11. None of the courses you’re taking will have anything to do with the major you signed up for during first year, but by the end of first year you’ll be required to choose a major now that you’ve been oriented with the subjects covered. Go figure.
    
    
    
12. And just as you are required to know courses that you don’t actually need to know, you’ll be deprived of other courses that you need to know about. After all, how do you know what you need to know from what you don’t need to know? You should only know what we think you need to know, that’s why they call it higher education, and you’re too short to decide for yourself.
    
    
    
13. Here’s the thing about college, the worst thing you can do is to date someone from college. However, if you can manage to do that, the world will bow down in reverence. You see, every chick comes out of school uncontested thinking that she’s the hottest broad ever popped, and every guy comes out of high school thinking nobody can know he was the nerd if he can emulate the jock who bullied him, which will be easy since he already knows every little move he makes in textbook detail. The result is predictable; there are less rejections in the Bronx penitentiary than there is in college.
    
    
    
14. And after your parents put you through college with the money they’ve made between the present point and the time they graduated from college..
    
    
    
15. ..you get into college only to realize that you could have skipped high school altogether and nobody would have noticed..
    
    
    
16. ..and then you graduate from college and jump into real life only to realize that high school theory applies to college too.
    
    
    
17. And in thinking you can get ahead of the pattern, you’ll go down the same road your parents paid so much to air-hockey you out of, just so you could stay in the same road the three of you want. Proof? This sentence will only make sense to you if you’re a college student/graduate.