CODY’S COLUMN: Real college advice, for once

By Cody Fitzgerald
Campus News

If there was a prize for giving very questionable, unqualified, unsolicited advice with ulterior motives behind doing so, Dr. Phil would be able to retire. That being said, I’d be able to take his show. I’ve come out here several times to give advice regarding school, jobs, relationships, etc., and typically it is coming from an inexperienced voice and coaxed with some level of irony. While I can assure you the irony is not going away, I can at least now say that I do have some experience as I type this about to go into my second year of college fresh out of a relationship and with no more than $600 to my name, so I’m slightly less unqualified. Today, let’s go through some (genuine) advice for people going into their first year of college.

• Make sure you walk your schedule the first day before classes, because if not you can (and will) walk into the wrong class and sit there until the name of the course is casually dropped by the professor. Or, in my case, twice.
• The syllabus for every class is almost always 10x scarier looking than the class actually is.
• There is inevitably a party scene on campus, and with that means apple juice will likely be served. For reputational purposes, I am going to abstain from giving you advice on whether or not to attend these apple juice parties, but please, if you find yourself there, know what your apple juice tolerance is.
• Now is the time to try out some new clothes, or a new hairstyle.
• If you want to work in college, I would never tell you it’s a bad idea to do so. However, if work is coming at the expense of your free time, self care, or time with friends, it’s time to cut back or quit altogether.
• You will never, ever, need every book your professors require. Wait until the first day of classes before you drop $200 you do not have to.
• If you are an exception to this, then that is great, but 9 times out of 10 you will think your orientation group is going to be your clique for the entirety of college, and beyond Halloween you will not speak to any of them ever again.
• If you can’t afford a parking pass, or just can’t bring yourself to drop the insane amount that they are charged for, buy parking tickets off of other people that have gotten them. Public safety usually has a rotation of different colored tickets that they put on cars, so figure that out, and then put the existing parking tickets on your car so when they drive by, they think they’ve already ticketed you. Or just buy a parking pass, I guess.
• You are a grown adult capable of making decisions and deserving respect, and with that, do not allow your professors to walk all over you. It’s not often you have this problem, and most are pretty great, but if they need a casual reminder that you are not a child, you should let them know.
• Don’t jump into a relationship immediately in college. You may think that you know who you are and that you’re ready for something like that, but you’re not. You have a lot of growth to do and you will walk out of your first year a completely different person.
• College is a place where a lot of people are figuring out who they are, and if someone is transitioning, or changing their pronouns, give that person the respect that you would want.
• At this point in your life, you already know what your favorite fast food place is, so you don’t need to go out and taste all of them every week.
• You can say no if your friends want to hang out. You should absolutely go out and do things and have fun, but if you need a night off, you deserve one.
• You may want to find friends with similar interests to you, and while this could be the toxically extroverted part of me speaking, I’ve found that sometimes it is even more fun to find a friend that you share zero interests with.
• Keep a friend’s number saved in your phone as “Mom,” “Dad,” “Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Partner,” etc. and say you “need to make a call to someone important” if you ever need to get out of a situation, albeit for safety or just comfort reasons.
• Try a class that might be a little out of your comfort zone, you might develop a new interest.
• Don’t try to be popular, because to put it bluntly, no one cares.
• Peer pressure is a real thing, and something you should look out for.
• You should join a club, but not for the sake of joining a club. Everyone is going to tell you how important it is to do so, and I won’t argue that it has benefits, but don’t sit in a knitting club if it’s not something you care about.
• While I am the last person to preach about saving money and “being responsible,” there is some truth to the fact that you do not need to go out every single night and blow all of your money, and you’re going to be a lot more comfortable having money to fall on.
• With respect to the previous piece of advice, it’s also important to know the middle ground. Yes, don’t blow every single dollar to your name, but remember that you will make the money back. If there’s a concert, event, or gathering you want to attend but the price looks kind of daunting, DO IT.
• If you happen to find yourself at a party, and they are serving apple juice, DO NOT accept apple juice from anyone. You may think that you trust this person, it does not matter. Do not accept apple juice from anyone.
• Now is the perfect time to thin the herd on the people from back home, there may be some friends/family that you no longer wish to affiliate with, and there is no better time to cut them off than now. It is important to keep in contact with the ones you still want to see, though.
• Eat your vegetables.

There you have it, hopefully with these tips and tricks you can have a successful freshman year of college and find yourself in a slightly better position the next summer.

Cody Fitzgerald is a 2021 Schuylerville High School grad satirizing anything and everything he can get his hands on. Aspiring to become “one of the cool” High School English teachers, he now attends Siena College and hopes to share this outlook/coping mechanism with future generations.