As a learned and wise 20-year-old senior, I feel that it is my duty to pass on a few brief words of advice to the eager young freshmen now surging through campus: don't become bitter.
(Though ideally I would leave the neophytes to ponder these words, uttered by a mighty and formidable campus figure, without further ado, in awed, confused silence, I will now bow to the pressure of my editor and elaborate with an article designed mainly to fill up space. Just bear in mind that you've already heard the sound bite; the rest is merely explication, intended to turn the aforementioned confusion into well-deserved awe. No, not really.)
Don't become bitter. Thus spake the mighty oracle of Gilman Hall, usually found hovering over the seal at the main entrance, which is, of course, the real reason you shouldn't walk over the seal - the oracle, not mere superstition, prevents transgressors from graduating once they have violated [insert inoffensive possessive pronoun] personal space. No, the Gilman Hall oracle does not mind being referred to as neuter.
However, the Gilman Hall oracle, despite [repeat possessive pronoun] sexual ambiguity, offers a surprising nugget of wisdom that can even be applied to possibly-sexual relationships. Bitterness is a plague that seems to strike the majority of Hopkins sophomores and juniors and which has no cure once contracted. Fortunately, unlike other malignant diseases, prevention relies not on responsible condom usage, but rather on maintaining a positive outlook despite the many setbacks you will assuredly encounter. Though that sounds like the opening sentence from a self-help book, the fact remains that even self-help books occasionally, if only accidentally, do provide useful advice (much like the Gilman oracle, which prefers to possess the bodies of writing sems majors and cause them to mope about the Gilman steps contemplating their future careers in burger-flipping.)
When faced by adversity, do not quail. Getting a "C" in Orgo could prove to be the best thing you've ever done: after Academic Advising reams you out and repeatedly assures you that you will never, ever get into med school and should therefore stop even pretending to try, you might actually listen to your impulses and realize that burger-flipping is a more noble profession than medicine, anyway. And when the guy/girl/elephant of your dreams turns you down for a date at the Midnight Cruise, take heart. There really are only three major outcomes: a) you'll end up dating anyway; b) you'll find out later just what a jerk he/she is, or how he/she forgot to use that condom and gave someone on your hall an STD; or c) you'll bemoan your love for the elephant at the Baltimore Zoo to someone that you trust, and your confidante will drag you to the Counseling Center and get you the help that you desperately need. So everything will work out in the long run, without any need for bitterness.
Rest assured, then - you can break the cycle of bitterness at Hopkins. When upperclassmen begin to bitch and whine, pay no mind. When they tell you they hate their major, their professors, their exes and their apartments, remember that you know better. Just because their major requires more work than humanly possible, though their professors don't know their names or where they should look for graduate programs, even if their exes have all shacked up with each other and their apartments are crumbling to bits at their feet with full consent from their tightfisted landlord, be comforted. These unfortunate upperclassmen are simply suffering from an acute case of bitterness, and the fact that their heart-rending descriptions of misery seem to coincide startlingly closely with their actual lives is completely meaningless. If you tell yourself that everything will be fine, if you pick a humane (but not necessarily Humanities) department with professors who care and a considerate significant other and eventually an apartment that isn't infested with roaches, you will have managed to prevent Hopkins bitterness and prove yourself stronger than so many of those who come before you.
Don't listen to everything people tell you, especially the upperclassmen - it's not as tough as it sounds. Hey, if I did it, anyone can.
Incidentally, welcome to Hopkins.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The News-Letter.