I grimace whenever I look back on the past three years. These years have not given me the washboard abs and six-foot-height I wished for. Alas, the only things I’ve gained are twenty pounds and an insatiable addiction to coffee. Yet, my biggest frustration is not my physical mediocrity; rather, it was my lack of useful knowledge coming in. No one told me what it felt like to be a grain of sand at the beach in a school of over four thousand students, feeling microscopic is, at times, inevitable. Such was the fate I believed I was consigned to for the next four years. Or so I thought. High school isn’t all fun and games, but it isn’t a complete bore, either. Looking back, I can say that I’ve grown past my awkward freshman self.As I sit in this coffeehouse waiting for the ground to swallow me whole, I am overcome with a sense of responsibility to you, incoming freshmen, in hopes of making these next four years the best they can be. This duty to help has resulted in a hastily-written freshman survival guide from one of Poly’s most lackluster students. Though I wanted to release this in Sunday’s edition of the Times, the High Life will have to do. To all freshmen, make sure to print this out and post in on your walls. Treat it with the same reverence as the Bible. This collection of tips will single-handedly turn your life around. You can thank me later. For starters, you must learn that Poly’s seagulls are unavoidable. They have accuracy better than Olympic archers. Walk with caution, my friends. Secondly, spend a coup1e of hours on Urban Dictionary. You don’t know how embarrassing it is to not know the difference between “thought” and “thot”. Once you learn the art of communication, try talking to people. For the most part, Poly students are very friendly—not everyone is a cold-blooded cynic like me. Graduation is in four years, start eating healthy. You will most likely donate several organs in order to fund your college education, so the better their condition, the less debt you’ll accrue. A kidney might pay for a textbook or two. As you prepare to become a semi-functioning adult, learn to control your social media usage. Not everyone needs to know what Becky ate for breakfast. The whole world is your oyster and your eyes are plastered to a screen. Look up at the falling ceiling tiles once in a while — counting the dots are a great way to pass the time in class. What is the most valuable advice I can give to you? My biggest tip is to do something worthwhile. Engage in various things, actually. You’re going to spend four years with people as lost as you. Hang out with them. Go attend Poly’s many activities. Join a club. Better yet, join the High Life and hang out with me, Poly’s go-to source for bad humor. As you spend the next four years in these halls, I hope you heed my advice. It will help make these years a bit more bearable. Best of luck, fellow Jackrabbits.
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