Jennifer Hanson - The Real Freshman Handbook

Copyright 1996 by Jennifer Hanson
All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Hanson, Jennifer.
The real freshman handbook : a totally honest guide to
life on campus / Jennifer Hanson and friends,
p. cm.
Previous ed.: 1996.
ISBN 0-618-16342-5
1. College student orientationUnited StatesHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.

LB2343.32 .H36 2002
378.1'98dc21 2001051886

e ISBN 978-0-547-56147-9

v2.0518

Welcome to college!!! Youre in for the ride of your lifeenough 70s parties to wear down the seat of those vinyl camouflage pants your dad gave you for graduation; all-night rap sessions about men, women, and Pat; moonlight kisses on the football field after the lights have been extinguished. If youre especially photogenic, you may even find yourself having an animated conversation with a professor in front of a blazing maple tree and, later, in an admissions brochure.

In the above endeavors you dont need much guidance; just follow your libido and the fashion dictates of Abercrombie & Fitch. But college isnt all Felicity-style hangin; as the stacks of forms colleges send incoming freshmen attest, theres a lot of practical stuff to deal with. How do you go about choosing four classes from a catalog of three thousand, let alone how do you survive them? How do you get a vomit stain out of your comforter and the neighborhood cockroaches out of your Tupperware? What should you do if your roommate develops severe stomach pains and is too weak to get to the infirmary? How can you avoid spending more on books than you did on plane fare? How do you build a loft? How can you maintain full-body fitness without leaving your Barcalounger? And, most important of all, how can you ensure that your nocturnally foraging roommate is out cold, his coonskin cap covering his face, by midnight the evening before your rocks for jocks exam?

We know the solutions to these and other pressing problems because weve been there; weve been through freshman year and the memory is still fresh as dog doo. You see, my friend, were college students just like you, only a little older (juniors), a little wiser, and a little more obsessed with corn. We know that you could find out everything in this book by yourself if you had to and that many of your less literate classmates will, and more. But there is just so much fun to be had... why reinvent the wheel when you could be out burning up the road?

We come originally from Minnesota, where we rose out of the cornfields of our youth to attend high school in the lovely but unfortunately crop-free city of Minneapolis. There we lived in friendship, gossip, and a pizza restaurant called Sydneys; there we parted, each bound for a different part of the country and a different type of collegiate environment. Two years later we came together again, possessed by a mission to spread the lessons we learned from our mistakes and experiences, and the gospel of grain. The result of our reminiscences, Jolt-fed brainstorming, and piety: the book you now hold in your trembling hand.

From our class, our campuses, and our fields to yours, then, our gift.

If you decide to live off campus, please see chapter 8. If you decide to live on, the first day of the rest of your life will be the day you fill out... the rooming questionnaire. You cant get through a year of college without hearing the storiesthe roommate from Burbank with a psychiatric record longer than Hannibal Lecters; the klepto with a yen for boxers; the obsessive-compulsive who sets five alarm clocks, each to a different track on Eminems latest release; the girl who returns from her boyfriends room via the fire escape, yet plays dumb when you ask her for cat-burgling tips; the dude who likes to make love vicariously by listening to your phone conversations with your girlfriend.

Septembers charming eccentricities are Mays motives for mastering voodoo: your roommate situation, and how you deal with it, can make or break your freshman year. Not surprisingly, however, colleges give you very little voice in the important decision of whom youll be living with. Some colleges dont even make a pretense of thoughtful matching; if your school is one of these, you may well mistake your roommate questionnaire for a piece of stationery. But before you excitedly use it to begin a letter to your Estonian pen pal, read that brief text at the topit probably asks you the two questions most colleges find they have to ask: whether youre a smoker, and whether youre willing to live with one. But even colleges that seem to take a profound interest in your hobbies and personal quirks may be putting on a bit of a show; most colleges we know base their arrangements on only the most general of information about you. Forget the tearjerkers about your kittys battle with depression and devote your attention to the basics.

Depending upon your colleges facilities, you may have the option of living in various special dorms. Chances are, you wont be assigned to one of these unless you ask to be, but be on your guard if you happen to know that your college has such dorms. One of us, either randomly or because of the autobiographical info we provided, got assigned to a 24-hour quiet dorm. It turned out all rightand turned out to be something less than 24-hour quietbut it could easily have been graveyard city. If you would definitely not want to be in one of these special dorms, say so:

Single-sex dorms (mandated on some campuses, particularly those with religious affiliations). Unfortunately, such dorms have gained the reputation of being virgin vaults and/or bastions of homosexualityneither of which they necessarily are. While its true that nymphos and homophobes might find a stay in a single-sex dorm uncomfortable, these buildings can also simply provide a comfortable atmosphere for the conservative, the shy, or those who prize the privilege of being able to walk to the bathroom in nothing but a birthday suit.

Quiet dorms. Two types of dorms fall into this category: 1) dorms in which there are actual rules mandating silence at certain hours or all hours, and 2) dorms that are quiet by reputation or by virtue of their distance from campus centers. Both types have their advantages for naturally outgoing people who simply cant concentrate in the presence of distractions: If you can count on making friends quickly outside your dorm, then these may be for you. But if you tend to hang back, it may be in your interest to put yourself in a more sociable environment where you wont be able to help meeting people. Many freshmen make most of their friends through their dorms, and if yours disallows talking in the halls, bonding becomes trs difficile.

Chemical-free dorms. Such dorms often end up being kind of a compromise between regular and quiet dorms. Since alcohol isnt allowed, the parties will be elsewhereyet in the absence of noise restrictions, conviviality flourishes.