Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2008/09/22/tdrs_guide_to_freshman_etiquette.php
Monday, September 22, 2008
Pea-green freshmen: you’re about to embark on a four-year journey of embarrassing hookups, inopportune booting, and debilitating hangovers. The following tips will help to minimize your stupid decisions at Dartmouth. However, it’s inevitable that you’ll ignore this advice and make a fool of yourself anyway. After all, you are freshmen.
1) Food
For whatever reason, the concepts of “ordering” and “paying” are often too complex for you pea-greens. Before you reach the front of the line at Foco, make sure you know exactly what your expanding stomach desires. When ordering, remember to specify whether you want to eat “here” (with other bumbling ‘shmen in the dining hall) or “to-go” (so you can take your food back to your cell in the Choates). When paying for your meal, have your Dartmouth identification handy. Delaying the check-out process because your ID is at the bottom of your designer handbag is a cardinal sin.
You’ll learn through happenstance that there are a number of specialty sandwiches at the Foco grill. Don’t ask the DDS staff what these are; make your order prompt and don’t ask questions. Upperclassmen get very hungry, and they don’t like it when pea-green freshmen hold up the line by asking what goes on a “Joyo.”
Finally, don’t overcook popcorn. The odor from a burnt bag of Pop Secret Light will fill up your entire dorm and earn you the ire of all your freshmen ‘friends.’ Hint: there’s a button for it right on the microwave.
2) Pong
The most critical errors freshmen make usually involve pong. There are typically two types of pea-greens who perturb upperclassmen: drunken lightweights and ultra competitors.
Lightweights are usually easy fodder for more Keystone-savvy upperclassmen, but occasionally a lightweight will get too drunk to hit/pickup/see the ball. This creates overextended, mediocre games of pong that are not satisfying for either side. To combat this issue, refrain from pre-gaming if you’re planning to play pong for the night.
As for the ultra competitors, be wary of your pong behavior in a fraternity basement. Yes, winning at pong can be exciting, particularly if you do so against a brother. And yes, losing a game can be dejecting, especially if you’ve waited an hour to get on table. However, pong is a drinking game. The point isn’t to win—it’s to drink. Always remember the adage, “Everybody wins at pong.”
3) Blitz terminals
These are meant for quick checks of Blitz and maybe—MAYBE—composing a brief a message or two. Opening every single one of your emails at one of these stations not only makes you an inconsiderate boar, it compromises your privacy: each potentially embarrassing email is being read by the idle person peering over your shoulder. Checking Facebook or MySpace on a Blitz terminal is always unacceptable. It’s called a “Blitz terminal” for a reason.
Try and resist the urge to drunkenly use one of the Novak computers on your way to frat row at one in the morning. Drunken blitzes are never a wise choice. A night of merriment can be quickly erased by a poorly composed email sent to the wrong person. A good rule of thumb, “If you’ve had a fifth, don’t send a blitz.”
4) Class
Go to class. It might seem “cool” to skip class because you got “so wasted” the night before, but really, no one cares how “cutting-edge” you think you are. Your parents did not pay tens of thousands of dollars for you to sit around all week nursing hangovers and looking at Photoshopped pictures of Sarah Palin.
Also remember that class isn’t a venue for you to speak. Upperclassmen attend lectures to hear what the professor has to say. The occasional raised pea-green hand is acceptable, even encouraged, but repeatedly delivering naïve orations about Immanuel Kant in Philosophy 1 isn’t going to do you any favors. Reserve your self-important babble for your freshman seminar; this way, upperclassmen won’t have to hear you talk.
5) High school
Most of you know that you’re not in high school anymore, but there will be a few of you who will hold on to the “glory days” when you thought you were important and special. Truth be told, none of it matters. The only thing that matters now is that you’re here. Dartmouth College provides the most rewarding undergraduate experience in the world. Enjoy it, and stop reminiscing about the past.
Similarly, bragging about test scores and other conceited tidbits will only hurt your reputation. Self-deprecation, rather than self-aggrandizing, will win you friends among pea-greens and upperclassmen alike.
6) “Freshmen mistakes”
Even if you follow all of the above, be open to the fact that you’re still going to make a lot of mistakes. That’s what college is about. You’re almost guaranteed to wake up several times over the next few months with a pounding headache accompanied by regrettable flashbacks from the night before.
But in all honesty, if you don’t screw up the first year, then you’re doing something wrong. Embrace the embarrassment of being a freshman. Next year, you’ll be the ones laughing.