Freshman Guide: The Basics

Explore Chicago Chicago is a very unique and diverse city right next door to Northwestern’s campus. Take some weekends to explore what Chicago has to offer, but make sure you record the findings of your explorations for the North American Cartographic Information Society (http://nacis.org/).

Be Yourself Because you will never be me no matter how hard you try.

Yea or Neigh Northwestern is a horse free campus so don’t even fucking think about it, horses.

Get Involved Northwestern has a lot of great extracurriculars you can join, like my band Kill Reptiles. We have a sound that’s kind of like a mix between Sublime and Green Day and we need a drummer and a bassist, auditions are tomorrow night.

Go Greek! Rush a Greek organization if you’re okay with implicitly supporting a system that’s come under a lot of media attention for morally questionable actions. However, don’t rush a Greek organization if you are interested in being a loser geed.

The De Facto King of Northwestern I am the de facto king of Northwestern University.

Scooters

I really don’t understand this, but scooters are cool, if you’re a big scooter guy get in on this.

Hats In college it’s all about hats: who has the hat, which hats are big, which ones are made of felt. Make sure you stay up to date on all the hat trends or end up being the laughingstock of Northwestern.

Stay Healthy Northwestern has a recently renovated, state of the arts fitness facility on north campus, but I manage to stay extremely toned and lean only through body-weight exercises I can do in my apartment so I have never been there.

Party Etiquette Make sure you don’t commit a social faux pas during your first college party. If someone at the door of a party asks “Who do you know?” name as many people as you can think of—they just want to make sure you’re popular enough to come in.

Explore Your Interests Northwestern makes it possible to pursue multiple interests through its unique and empowering dual degree program, or you can just struggle to complete one degree.

Making Friends Be sure to make a lot of friends during Welcome Week that you will gradually replace with mannequins as college goes on.

Know Your Professors A lot of times the difference between a “B” and an “A” in a class can come down to whether or not your professor knows who you are. Learn the names of your professor’s children, then draw labeled pictures of them on every assignment you turn in.

Brine, baby, brine! “Ya gotta brine that poultry to really give it the super flavor.” — Guy Fieri

Dry Campus Despite what tour guides often say about Northwestern being a dry campus, there are a number of puddles that form on Northwestern’s campus. It’s impossible to ignore them, so the most responsible approach is to learn where they are and avoid them.

Here's an essential for you: don't rush Sherman Ave like I did.  In fact, please run and get help now--they have me locked up in a dungeon somewhere on south campus and once every few minutes someone comes in and tells me the "Banana-Orange" Knock-Knock joke.  Don't make the same mistakes I did.