See that girl sitting outside the Aztec Market doing nothing? She’s waiting for the clock to turn 4:30 p.m. so she can use the “dinner” money from her meal plan.
There’s no better way to spot a freshman than to eyeball a campus restaurant or Aztec Market. I swear it’s a sick game they play with freshmen, like a rat race or something. Can you handle the real world? Can you feed yourself? Can you tell time?
In just three weeks of being a big, bad college student, I’ve learned a lot, including how to spot a freshman.
Back to point No. 1. As if it’s not bad enough already, freshmen are cursed and taunted with those evil meal plans. I’ve wasted more time, money, stress and embarrassment on my freakin’ meal plan than I could starving myself, which, by the way, is impossible. It’s as easy as joining Residence Hall Association council, International Student Association, or heck even The Daily Aztec to be handed free food!
Point No. 2. If you look around while chatting on your cell phone, I guarantee you’ll see at least one freshman who went the wrong direction. Just watch – they’ll be walking normal, throw something away, then turn around and walk the other direction. You just know. Who walks across campus for a specific trashcan?
Or even better, you see the guy who strolls around the whole building and ends up making a U-turn. He might as well have “freshman” stamped across his forehead. He probably even has a campus map. It’s somewhere in his mess of a backpack if he isn’t already using his pointer finger to draw an imaginary line of where he is and where he needs to be.
Point No. 3. You walk into a house party, it’s totally chill. People have labeled it a “kick back” where everyone’s just hanging out, drinking, or maybe playing cards. Everyone’s dressed casually except for one. She stands out like a group of girls rushing a sorority – all dressed up, hair full of chemicals, face full of powder. It’s a kick-back freshie.
It’s the freshman mistake of getting ready before making plans. Nothing is worse than spending time getting all dressed-to-impress and ready for a night on the town – pretending you’re old enough to get in anywhere – and then realizing you have no real plans. A freshman will spend hours sitting around calling and texting, trying to get into a party.
Then there’s the group meeting, which consists of dry conversation like:
“Well, what do you wanna do?”
“I dunno, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“OK well ? we could do this or this or this.”
“Oh, I don’t care it’s up to you.”
“I dunno, it doesn’t matter to me.”
You end up staying there until you’re too tired and the trolley stops running, playing cards and watching movies at home – looking very hot.
There’s also a whole list of points on how to hide being a freshman, but that’s a different column. I can’t blame the upper-classmen for being able to tell us apart from the other non-freshmen species. I blame the hormones they inject into our food for making 12-year-olds look 18 and college freshmen look 30. What it comes down to is freshmen are creeping around all over campus, trying to stay masked. (It’s OK, you’re safe there reading The Daily Aztec.)
I don’t know who to feel worse for, those poor guys who spend all night hanging out with a freshman, interested in taking you out when the heavy weighted question comes out: “Are you 21?”
You casually work around the question but, while the drinks are free-flowing at the party, you won’t be able to touch alcohol pretty much anywhere else.
They get that look on their face like the Aztec football team just won a game. “You’re 18?! So wait, you’re only a freshman?!”
And nothing is the same after that.
-Kristina Peltin is an undeclared freshman.
-This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.
