Look at you guys! So carefree! Well, for the moment

Ah, Frosh Week. A bright spot in the lives of all Princeton students, the sweet collective calm before the furious academic storm of a school year. I see it now: brightly-clad freshmen wandering across campus in gaggles of eight, collectively lost despite three maps in hand; disheveled 20-somethings handing me overpriced textbooks in the basement of Labyrinth; students panting as they lug ratty couches up stairs in the God-forsaken humidity. But there really is something special in those bright and early days of a new school year, and it’s not just the wild abandon of freshmen getting drunk on the possibilities of college (and Beast, baby!).

It’s not, however, all straight-up good times for freshmen. We here at The Ink feel for you (we were freshmen once, can you imagine?) and decided to lay out some tips for new students. We know the opening week of college can be a difficult period: first time away from home, eternal awkward silences during your RCA meetings, your roommate kind of smells, what is this strangely Nazi-like salute everyone does while singing, you’re not a freshman girl so it’s impossible to get a beer anywhere.

To make transition to college a little easier, we’ve compiled a couple of tips and pointers to help you get through it all and come out on top. Not of your quintile, though; that’s pretty much impossible.

So here it is: The Ink‘s Freshman Guide to Princeton* (A three-part series).