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The Daily Cardinal Est. 1892
Tuesday, November 05, 2024

Myths of college life

Greetings new UW-Madison student, wherever and whenever you may be perusing our humble publication.  

 

 

 

Sitting here in UW's Muir Woods, laptop rested in lap on a perfect afternoon, I can't help but look back on my own introduction to campus three years ago. 

 

 

 

No doubt, you have experienced SOAR, are about to experience SOAR or are currently experiencing SOAR. In any case, you wouldn't be missing much at SOAR if you spent the whole thing sleeping, playing Gameboy or staring dreamily at the pretty young thing from Edina, Minn. for whom you are now ready to breakup with your high school sweetheart.  

 

 

 

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SOAR felt to me like a bunch of officials and guides telling us what parents, grandparents, high school principals, youth group leaders and Lynne Cheney wanted to hear college would be like.  

 

 

 

Certainly, they speak the truth on the obvious things about college-that you'll meet new people, learn some things, decide your future, etc. But the other stuff-the truly important stuff-they'll fib about.  

 

 

 

Among the most egregious lies told to me, which I suppose will be passed on to you at SOAR, is that it is not only possible, but likely, for students to be arrested for underage drinking.  

 

 

 

The only way to be issued a drinking ticket at UW is to go above and beyond in the realm of irresponsible consumption. To put it simply, unless you drunkenly give a cop the finger, pee on Bascom Abe or play flippy-cup in Library Mall, you should escape your underage years ticketless. 

 

 

 

Another factual aberration SOAR-mongers will surely perpetuate is that your dormitory housefellow will likely be a calm and responsible adult ready to handle all of your problems. This would be the rare exception.  

 

 

 

In fact it is far better to have a depraved and irresponsible junkie as your housefellow because your transgressions are likelier to go unnoticed. In fact, if you show up in your dorm to find out that your housefellow is a not a habitual drug abuser or dealer, I suggest you move to a different floor.  

 

 

 

If you do this campus right, there will be sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Oh yes, and learning. Can't forget that. Many of you will find while you're sowing wild oats, seeds of knowledge will be planted as well, probably while you aren't looking.  

 

 

 

Of course, don't plan on getting too much learning done freshman year. The classes you take will probably not strike too deep into your real academic interests. Just use them to feel out where you want to go in the next four to seven years.  

 

 

 

Don't get too stressed if your GPA isn't as high as you'd like at the end of this year. You'll have plenty of time to bring it up in the next couple years, when college gets more interesting and informative and you figure out which professors don't notice when you aren't there. 

 

 

 

With any luck, in four or five years, you'll be in the same position I am right now-a one-year countdown to bittersweet matriculation into the misnamed, but oft invoked real world. That is, if budget woes haven't by then converted Bascom Hall into a Super Wal-Mart.  

 

 

 

Thanks for picking up The D. C. five days a week, nine months a year. This is UW's best student daily.  

 

 

 

Dan Hinkel is a senior majoring in journalism and political science. He can be reached at dlhinkel@students.wisc.edu. His column will run every Thursday in The Daily Cardinal during the fall semester.

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