How not to look like a freshman: Survival tips for your first year

Princeton, like any other aspect of your life, is a game with rules and regulations, dos and don'ts, things to embrace and things to avoid like the plague.

Leave high school memories in high school. Never, ever, discuss the terrible two — the GPA and SAT. Those who feel compelled to compare these numbers are about as welcome as warm, stale, flat beer on a hot Saturday afternoon.

Arrive at your room very early, say 5:30 a.m., the first day of Orientation Week. Don't worry about being tired — you'll get first-choice bedrooms, closets and desks, which is much more important than a few hours of snoozing.

Don't cling to high school friends. For those of you who come from St. Paul's or Exeter with half your graduating class, try to remember that you are here to meet new people.

Steal the clapper. Immediately. The Class of 2004 doesn't have to be clever about it — just do it. It doesn't matter that the administration removed it. Try it anyway. We've got a tradition to uphold here.

The student agencies stationed in the Dillon Gym courtyard will try to sell you anything. But if you don't want to be broke by the end of your first week, just chill, and figure out what you really need.

Definite necessity: freshman facebook. It's not a book, it's a verb. To facebook — 1. the process of looking up that cutie you met at the 'Street' last night. 2. a means by which to ridicule people you have never met.

Think about your facebook photo before you send it in. People will identify you as the flirty girl with the cowgirl hat or the guy cozying up to his hand for the rest of your University career.

Good rule of thumb: no props.

While you're in the buying mood, purchase a carpet too — the dust bunnies don't breed as fast if you have one.

Watch your PAC

During your first week here, don't reach out and touch every human being you know. There's always the tale about the student who paid a $548 phone bill three months late — after the phone had been disconnected twice.

The telephone office will assign you a seven-digit telephone personal access code, or PAC number, which enables you to make long-distance calls from your room extension. Don't lose it.

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Don't let your feet go commando in the University showers — unless you're one of the lucky Forbesians to have your own bathroom. Take shower shoes and make them big and ugly. It's character-building.

Buy some good walking shoes if you're living in Forbes College. It's not really as bad as some people make it out to be, though. A lot of the rooms have their own bathrooms and the food is the best of all the University dining halls. Then again, that's not saying much.

Many people even say they like the 50-mile trek to classes every morning. If you don't, get a bike.

Learn the eating clubs. It can be somewhat embarrassing if you walk into TI and say, "Is this Terrace?" You shouldn't have to take the campus map with you when you go out. Besides, you'll probably be schlepping down Prospect with a horde of about 30 other freshmen, so at least one of you should have a clue.

In the past, freshmen have made it a mission, known as the "Prospect 11," to try to collect a beer from each of the clubs in a single night. But this is not an easy task, even for those of legal drinking age, so be wary before attempting it.

Make friends with upperclass students in eating clubs so you can get passes to their clubs from them. If you don't have a pass, don't wait around outside the club hoping someone will give you one.

Instead, always try the basement entrance in the back, the fire escape ladder or find an open window. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Make friends with anyone or anything — animal, mineral or vegetable — who has passed the landmark age of 21.

Act like a sophomore by picking up all the trendy expressions and nicknames. Wawa, a 24-hour mini-market, is simply the Wa. Prospect Avenue is referred to as the 'Street.' Tiger Inn is never just Tiger, always TI. Mathey College is pronounced "Matty."

And The Daily Princetonian is the 'Prince.' Everybody who's cool reads it.