6 Things Nobody Tells You About Going to College

Let me begin with an excerpt from Dr. Douchebaggles McHappyturd, president of every university ever created, during his annual welcome note to the sea of incoming freshmen that he will likely never actually interact with:

“Hello, my name is Dr. Douchebaggles McHappyturd, and I would like to personally welcome you, the class of *FILL IN YEAR*, to this exciting new school year at *SCHOOL NAME*. Like in every movie ever created, you will attend ridiculous parties on yachts, make unbreakable life long friendships, and come out with a badass fulfilling job in the end.”

Except absolutely no part of that is true.

1. TAs are Nazis

For the most part, the purpose of a TA is to assist a professor with the shaping of young minds. In reality, all they end up doing is patrolling the aisles of the classroom to make sure you aren’t on Facebook. This marginal sense of importance often goes to their head and results in some of the most hilarious and embarrassing TA-students interactions of all time.

2. Getting sick is like plummeting into the bowels of hell

You will never realize how miserable and lonesome your existence is until the first time you get sick and are completely on your own. Aside from the crippling depression that will befall you from realizing how lonely you are, being sick and having to take care of yourself requires both money (off brand Tylenol costs HOW much?), and time (“Dr. Turdypants, I promise, I really am about to die this time. Please let me reschedule the test!”), two luxuries you really can’t afford.

3. Parties are never as good in real life as they are in film

I’m not sure what it is about Hollywood that manages to make everything seem substantially cooler than its reality counterpart, perhaps it’s the scripted dialog, perhaps the obligatory slutty-bitch-gets-pushed-in-the-pool-in-slow-motion action; regardless, it’s never like the movies.

What actually happens at a freshman college party:

8:00pm – Inform friends of potential party

10:00pm – Decide to go to party

11:00pm – Arrive at party

11:04pm – Be told the alcohol connection fell through, but “it’s cool”

11:06pm - Watch a game of beer pong with the 6 warm beers that are left

11:10pm – pronounce the party as “lame” and leave

4. No one actually redefines who they are

There seems to be some odd understanding of college as being the place where you can completely forget who you’ve been for the past 18 years and invent a persona unbeknownst to your family and friends. This usually works for about two weeks, until everyone realizes that you were a wiener in high school and will thus, likely continue treating you like said wiener.

5. Everyone will be better than you at everything

In high school you may have been hot shit. But go to college and you very quickly realize that people do some crazy shit to get to go to college for free. My freshman year I met someone who spent a year in Australia studying marsupials and caring for baby kangaroos. How the hell am I supposed to compete with this:

This is what a $25,000 a year scholarship looks like.

Moral of the story, stop pretending you’re a demigod. Because you’re not.

6. School spirit is a total bitch

The first week of freshman year is generally dedicated to indoctrinating you with the culture of the school, and this is just fine and dandy if the victim is a willing participant.

90% of the time, this isn’t the case.

Generally, this results in a giant group of pathetic looking freshman being forced to chant, scream, and awkwardly do full body motions against their will in the presence of total strangers. Because nothing says school unity like looking stupid in unison.