This is it. This is college done right.

As a freshman first-year, there are  certain mistakes you need to make and times to have before those two semesters end. So as this first semester comes to a close, Bwog decided to compile these essentials so that you don’t miss anything big. There are

The distinctly freshman

• Mistake your first friends at Columbia (NSOP) for your best friends…
• Find the love of your life.
• Realize that wasn’t the love of your life and college isn’t like in the movies.
• Not really realizing that you might need to work for once in your life..
• Assuming Butler is the only library.
• Almost forgetting to sign up for a PE class
• Be THAT freshman at a party (but only once)
• Have CAVA (or whatever it’s called nowadays) on your speed dial.
• Walk to Battery Park and back overnight (trust me, it’s dope)
• Discovering the third floor reading room in Diana
• Come out as ___________
• Break up with your high school boy/girl/humanfriend
• Awkward first office hours

The food-related

• Get really excited about the dining halls
• …(one week later) HATE the dining halls
• Figuring out Joe’s is easily a two minute walk from Milbank or Diana
• Go to Deluxe’s five dollars burger nights
• Make friends with the halal guy on 115 near Schapiro
• Midnight Breakfast (you get in first being a first-year, hollah)
• Big Sub

The things that will most likely continue well past your first year

• Actually going downtown one night instead of just staying in MoHo
• Missing your L-course sign-up time
• Panicked first email to a professor for an extension
• Panicked second email to a professor for an extension
• Be homesick.
• Think about transferring.
• Gain weight.
• Combine drinking and studying by getting drunk in one of the secluded rooms with your friends. Multiple times.
• Go crazy.
• Be irresponsible.

#1 Columbia student and well-rounded individual via Shutterstock.