Lauren Strapagiel
Editor-In-Chief
It’s my job to pass along words of wisdom for surviving your first year at Rye High. But here’s the truth: university is pretty easy.
Go to most of your classes, pay a moderate amount of attention, do the homework and, lucky you, there’s a shiny diploma in your future.
The challenge of university isn’t the book learnin’ part, it’s the attempting to be a quasi-adult part. It’s having to pay for tuition, rent and bills on top of the bar tab. It’s knowing how to say hi in the Pitman hallway to the guy you just had a horrible one night stand with. It’s figuring out how often you’re supposed to wash the sheets on your dorm bed (hint: often).
These probably aren’t things your Ryerson tour guide covered as you were looking at all our very impressive, very under-construction buildings.
Growing pains are no fun, but luckily you have four whole years to figure out how to function after high school. And here’s a little insight into how those four years are going to go:
First year: The fuck up year. You’re going to learn that beer is both tasty and cost effective, how the sex thing really works and that living in close quarters with a bunch of 18-year-olds wasn’t as fun as you’d thought. It’s also the one year where you can get low marks and still have time to boost your GPA for graduation.
Second year: The “oh shit, I’m paying for this” year. Say goodbye to beginner mode. You’re out of rez, passing prerequisite classes suddenly matter and being old enough to (legally) drink is eating into your wallet. Welcome to real life.
Third year: The “fuck this” year. The university thing? Bah. Over it.
Fourth year: Get me out of here. With only one year to go, all the tricks on how to do the bare minimum and still succeed are packed firmly in your noggin. The end is so close, yet so far, and will therefore drag on for eternity until you finally cross the Ryerson Theatre stage.
Basically this is your only year to get crazy, make mistakes and get a little (or a lot) messy. It’s the year when you can be a dummy and get away with it. In this issue we tell you all the tips and tricks to make the most of your dummy year.
Make note of when you can drop that class your failing without losing all your money with our pull-out calendar. Figure out where best to run amok in the city on a Friday night with our handy map on pages 8 and 9. Abuse your student discount privileges on page 11. Make your rez room hook-up friendly with our guide on page 12. And if that doesn’t work, see our rather useful list of covert campus spots for getting frisky on page 14.
Have fun, froshies. And remember to wear a rubber.
Seriously?
Apparently the only program that accepts dummies is journalism. Also – thanks for that story about where to go on campus. Now first years know where to poop.
Matt
University isn’t easy. Journalism is easy.