The Rules of College

"There’s a time and a place for everything-it’s called college.” - South Park.

In fall of 2004, I took SOC 5 with Professor Frank Clemente. In what was one of the most enjoyable classes I’ve ever had, he would share with us stories of his life and the lessons he had learned. He had his rules of drinking, rules of marriage, and rules of life. One subject he did not cover, at least not in rule form, was college life. It’s amazing what people don’t know coming into college that, through whatever means, they learn on the way. I’ve taken it upon myself to do as good of a job as I could of compiling what I feel every college student should know. In no particular order:

1. Enter college with an open mind. As a freshman, nothing can truly prepare you for college life. In high school everything is so structured and regulated that you basically have no choice but to just march on with your schedule. College, though, is a different world. You make your own schedule. You don’t generally have more than three to four classes a day with (realistically) an average of a few hours of homework. That leaves a lot of extra time. What you do with it is up to you. Know that there are a ton of experiences to be…well…experienced. If you’re not open to exploring college life, to using that free time in new ways, your experience will not be what it could.

2. Don’t get talked into doing things you don’t want to do. While you should be open to new experiences, you need to come to those decisions on your own. No one can make you do anything. If you don’t want to drink, don’t. If you’re with friends, they’ll understand and (if they can) offer you something else. If they don’t at least provide an alternative (be it immediate or in the future), they’re not your friends. Generally speaking, those students who allow themselves to grow will eventually open up. You’ll know when you want to try new things. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

3. Remember you’re there to learn. With all that free time, a lot of distractions can pop up. Video games, music, movies, drinking, drugs, sex, and other things can monopolize your time at school if you let it. Remember why you’re there. Go to class. Do the coursework. It took me a year and a half to learn that lesson, and as a result I had to dig myself out of a GPA hole. It only takes a few hours. You will still have plenty of time to do everything else.

4. Remember there’s more to college than class. College is a place where you turn from some high school runt into an adult. In high school, you have to worry about living with your parents and dealing with them. In the real world (post college) your job and potentially a family will demand your attention and force you to be responsible. College is the time to have fun. There is so much to learn in college outside of the classroom about life, love, yourself, others, and every other thing you can imagine. If you go to college and spend all your time studying and going to class, you lose out on all the other lessons to be learned.

5. Sleep is your best friend. Talking to some college students, you’d think that averaging four hours sleep and being propped up by caffeine is the student’s way of life. For some that may be true, but I’ll guarantee after a year or two that dies down. The body needs sleep to function. Any sleep you can get, get it. The occasional all-nighter may be unavoidable (due to procrastination and such), but making it a habit is just unhealthy. Besides, you don’t want to turn down a party or date because you’re too tired. That’s no fun.

6. Time is your worst enemy. When you get to college, you look at all the extra time you’ll have and you feel pretty good about getting things done. As your time in college passes, it will get faster and faster. The months between exams disappears so fast you swore it was only a week. As a procrastinator, I can tell you that there is no scarier moment in college than the second you realize that a major term paper you’ve known about all semester is due in twelve hours…and you haven’t even started yet! Even when you’re working, time goes too fast. If you learn to manage your time you will never need to worry about your work or having fun. Everything will work itself out.

7. Get a car or make friends with someone who does. At some point, you will either want to or need to go somewhere that neither your feet nor public transportation can get you to. Even if they can, there are certain situations where it is simply better to have a car. You don’t want to be walking back from the liquor store with a bunch of glass bottles weighing you down if you live ten blocks away. You don’t want to be taking those bottles and such on a bus or subway with you. For pure convenience and practicality, access to a car is essential. When you’re on your way home, it’s much better to be in a car than in some cramped bus.

8. Get a job or some other form of income. College life is expensive. Tuition, books, groceries, pizza, calzones, soda, booze…these all cost money. If you want to live the college life, you better have the dough to pay for it. Luckily most college campuses offer a bunch of jobs in one form or another. They may not be dream jobs, but they will be flexible to your schedule and allow you to go out with friends. If your parents or brother or someone else picks up the tab for something or gives you an extra few bucks, so much the better.

9. Talk to people. Get into conversations with as many people as possible. You will learn so much about the people around you, about the world around you, from just talking to other people. My sophomore year roommate was a Hispanic guy who had lived in Chicago, Dallas, and now just outside of D.C. His perspective on things was different than mine in a lot of ways simply from that alone. As a white guy who has never been west of State College, it was a novel experience. My junior year roommate was an English exchange student. Again, his view on life and the world (as well as the views of his friends) taught me even more. It was so interesting to hear their stories. If you don’t like your roommate (or if you don’t have one) there are people all around you in class and on campus. There’s bound to be someone you get along with and share interests with. You’ll never find them if you never say word one to anyone.

10. Take advantage of on campus activities. Join a club. Clubs are organizations where people with like interests gather. What better way to get to know more people? There’s something to talk about…you have something in common. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be there. Go to sporting events. The team doesn’t have to be good. The sport doesn’t have to be football or basketball. There are literally hundreds of sporting events every year that you can attend. It’s generally cheap or free, you spend time with your fellow classmates and campus-mates, and it makes for a fun time. Every campus is filled with these kinds of events. You’ll have a better experience if you take full advantage of them.

11. Pick a major that plays to your strengths. Don’t pick a major because you think it will make you money or because it sounds “fun.” When you do that, you’re only asking for trouble. Sure, if you’re good at math and physics then an engineering degree is all well and good. If you excel at writing or arguing, perhaps a major in the liberal arts is a good idea. Those two, however, do not work when you try to mix and match. By playing to your strengths, you can make your course load much easier. College work is hard enough without trying to figure out what a formula means or whether your spelling and grammar are correct in a political science paper.

12. Find a comfortable method of study. There is no universal advice that will work for this, other than that whatever method of studying you used in high school is probably not good enough. Each person is different. Each person works differently. The most important thing is for you to put yourself in the best position to succeed. If that means waiting until the last minute to do something, so be it. Beating your head against a wall by trying to do something that doesn’t work for you helps no one. By the same token, be aware of the consequences of choosing a particular path. A procrastinator, for example, can easily run out of time.

13. Find and take at least one “can’t miss” class. Each campus has its own class that is so popular that there is a waiting list a mile long. Some have several. More often than not these classes live up to the hype. For me, it was SOC 5 with Frank Clemente, whom I discussed earlier. Before I took this class, everyone I knew who had even heard of the class gave it as glowing of a review as I’ve ever heard for anything that resulted in a grade. Upon going in, I found out why. When Clemente teaches, he doesn’t just present the material. He welcomes the student into his life. You could hold that class down at G-Man or the Phyrst (bars, for any non-Penn Staters) and nothing would change. You laugh at the funny parts. You feel his pain. The best part about that class is that his stories could be anyone’s story. When he lectured about the life and death of his dog, I along with many others nodded my head, thinking about my own dog story. They are the stories that fill our lives, garnished with Clemente’s own personal touch. There are other classes out there that you will enjoy as well. If you pay attention, you’ll be able to find them.

14. Go to a bar at least once. I do not encourage sneaking in underage. It would be foolish of me, though, to ignore this part of college life. Bars have the population of an on campus activity, only with booze involved. The same opportunities for conversation and meeting new people are still there. You can go to hang out. You can go to drink. You can go to try to find a date. You can go to listen to music. There are so many things you can do at a bar with your fellow students that a trip to one is almost required.

15. Drink responsibly. Even if you drank in high school, you likely haven’t experienced anything on the level of college drinking. During your stay in college, I’ll guarantee you you’ll meet some guy (or girl) who’s had way too much to drink. They’ll be easy to spot, especially if you’re around the toilet when it all comes back up. These people either do not know their limits or they choose to ignore them. Neither of these things is healthy and both can cause serious problems. If you’re not really interested in drinking, even if you have been on other nights, don’t drink. If you do decide to drink and you know your limits, respect them for the sake of your dignity and your liver. If you don’t know your limits and want to drink, take it one drink at a time. After the first drink, let the effects settle in. If you don’t like what you feel, stop. If you don’t feel anything (or like the feeling) and wish to continue, repeat the process. Eventually, your body will let you know when it’s at or around its limit. When you reach that point, stop drinking. You’ll have more fun that way (and you won’t do anything you’ll regret later).

16. Go on at least one “adventure.” Again, this is subject to personal tastes. The four years of college will provide you with the best opportunities to do something you’ve always wanted to do. It could be something as simple as walking to a bar in the snow and rain to see a wrestling pay per view. It could be something as big as skydiving or taking a road trip to see new places and old friends. When you look back at college as “the best years of your life” (which they undoubtedly will be), these will be the strongest and best of your memories.

17. Make new friends and remember the old ones. College is simply more fun when you have people to share it with. For the first year and a half, I barely left my room. I was varying degrees of miserable, doing poorly in class, and desperately wanted something better. Though I revamped my study habits, the one thing I point to that turned my life around was having friends to consistently do something with at school. Now, I see and hang out with my friends on a daily basis and am both more relaxed and happier because of it. These people will provide you with even more opportunities to do the things listed above. At the same time, it always helps to have someone who knew you before you came to college. It’s important to remember who you are and where you came from. Friends from high school do that. They keep you grounded and, in the case of really good friends, know you better than you know yourself. By doing that, you’ll ensure yourself of a great college experience.