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Top 12 pro tips for incoming first-years

TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and YikYak alike are full of tips, tricks, and hacks for incoming Miami first-years or transfer students. Regardless of how well-meaning this advice may seem, there are plenty of spiteful, grumpy upperclass students who share bad advice to embarrass first-years.

The Miami Student has gathered very real, true and not-at-all backhanded advice for hopeless first-years like you. 

Follow this advice on everything from tips for dorm life to making friends to having a good time on the weekends (and more!), and you should be set to have a perfect, wonderful year where nothing at all goes wrong.

Tips for dorm life 

These tips are useless because you won’t spend much time in your room anyway, but we’ll share them with you nonetheless.

  1. Play music as loudly as possible in your dorm room. People will come and knock on your door and ask to be friends with you because they have similar music taste! Anyone who asks you to quiet down is just jealous of how cool you are. 

  2. Anyone who tells you that Oxford’s water quality is subpar is probably just trying to sell you a water filter from their multi-level-marketing scheme. If you live in an old, unrenovated dorm building, it’s perfectly safe to drink water straight out of the sink, and it tastes amazing.

  3. Speaking of the bathroom, always stand at the very first sink by the door. When the door swings open, you definitely won’t get hit by it or jumpscared by someone still wearing pajamas at 1 p.m. — it’s a great way to start conversations and meet new people!

Tips for making friends

You don’t actually have to try to make friends, because you and your orientation group are definitely gonna be besties for the rest of college. If you do feel like putting in an effort (why?), try these tips.

  1. Your roommate is probably a loser. Don’t bother even trying to hang out with them. It’s not like it’s nice to come home after a long day of classes and have a friend to talk to — you’ll make friends easier by being able to relate to the awful roommate woes. 

  2. Don’t bother introducing yourself to your classmates or asking to grab lunch. You’re so awesome, they’ll come to you first, begging to be friends. 

  3. The easiest way to get to know the people around you is to strike up a lively conversation at 1 a.m. when the fire alarm goes off in your residential hall because some kid was smoking something on the third floor. You’ll all bond over shared sleep-loss — better yet, pull the fire alarm yourself! All your new friends will think you’re totally rad, and your resident director will love your passion for meeting new people.

Tips for having fun on the weekends 

Having hobbies is overrated when you can just get alcohol poisoning instead. Try following this advice if you want to be part of the cool kids.

  1. This might sound a little bit unconventional, but try donating blood before going out. If you think about it, you’ll be able to get drunk faster while buying fewer drinks, so you’re saving money! And you’ll also get a cookie you can save for your inevitable 2 a.m. drunken cravings.

  2. If you, a first-year who is definitely not 21, get asked by a police officer for your ID, give them your fake! That way, they’ll see that you’re a 23-year-old from Guam and let you go about your evening as you planned. It’s not like identity theft is a felony or anything.

  3. If you don’t go the fake ID route for some reason, you’re bound to end up with the dreaded black Sharpie Xs on your hands. However, if you avoid washing your hands as much as possible throughout the weekend, the faint outline of the Xs might still be present when you go to your 8:30 a.m. lecture on Monday! This is yet another way to signal to your peers that you, in fact, are awesomely cool. 

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Tips for acing your classes 

You’re special. You’re unique. You’re a supergenius that shouldn’t bother studying. But you can always follow these tips anyway to get that extra leg up.

  1. Don’t stress about picking a major, just take classes that sound fun. It doesn’t matter if they’re 300 or 400 level classes — you might be a first-year, but you can tell everyone you’re basically a sophomore because you took AP Psychology in high school! Just don’t mention that you got a two on the exam.

  2. Going to class is entirely optional. Just show up the last week of class and ask the kids sitting around you for help. 

  3. Don’t bother reading the syllabus. If you have a misunderstanding with your professor later on in the semester, they’ll forgive you if you say that you didn’t know because you didn’t read the syllabus. You, after all, are special. 

If you just follow these simple, incredibly sincere tips, you should be on track to become the most popular first-year-who-is-technically-a-junior on campus! Who knows, maybe you’ll even be bestowed with the highest honor at Miami University — getting to wear the Swoop costume in front of everyone you know!

wahllm@miamioh.edu


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