Kiss yo' momma goodbye: Welcome to Hopkins

It will probably rank up there with one of the most exciting days of your life. There's also a good possibility that it will be the most stressful day of your life. But there is one thing for sure about the day you get to school -- it will be a day you won't forget.

Welcome to Johns Hopkins. Congratulations for the millionth time. You're in for four years of working hard, playing hard, sleeping little and drinking lots. But why project into the future when you first need to deal with the most immediate issue of all -- "I'm here. My stuff is on the curb. Now what?"

After your parents have ditched you and left you in a room full of boxes with some dude/dudette you don't even know, pat yourself on the back. You were legally emancipated when you turned 18 (and if you're not 18 yet, consider this an early birthday present), but now that you're at school, you're realistically emancipated. Unless your parents move into the house next door, they have no idea what you're doing. You are in charge of when you go to class, if you go to class, when you eat, when you sleep, and what you do for fun.

This is the best feeling in the world.

It can also be the complete and utter downfall of life as you know it.

You're now on your own. Because you are at Hopkins in the first place, there is a decent possibility that the necessary self-motivation to function on your own is already somewhat present. But then again, there are a frightening number of brilliant people in this world, not a small percentage of whom happen to be at Hopkins, who don't have the first clue about what to do once they're high-school free.

This article is not a cure-all. If it were, I would actually be making money. But with a little advice and that speck of common sense that has been cowering in your frontal lobe for the past four years, you will not be a CRAP (Confused and Royally Anti-social Pre-med). Guaranteed.

First -- Go to the Orientation Events. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Dancing like a chicken is ridiculous and embarrassing, but when a few hundred other kids are doing the exact same thing, no one is going to care. Really. Besides, it's not as if you could do any better on Club Night. The events were planned to give you a better grasp on what's at stake when you get to school, how to deal with issues that will ultimately come up, and -- gasp -- how to interact with other human beings. Listen up and dance.

Second -- Listen to your Academic Advisor. This particular faculty member doesn't and will never know you from the next advisee, but as far as a source of Random Useful Information, they will have to do. If you have any idea where you want to end up in four years, listen to them when they tell you what to take. Keep the papers they give you. Don't listen too carefully, lest you end up in a field you don't want to study. But pay some attention. While they don't know who you are, they know more than you do.

Third -- Don't have your life planned out already. There is nothing more annoying than furthering the assumption that all Hopkins students get to school, plow through four years doing exactly what they're told, and are then shipped off to med school. It will not kill you or your potential career to take a class in something wildly outside of your major. You only get these chances once in your life. Take advantage of it.

And fourth -- Get out from behind your computer. The school wouldn't plan events if it would rather you study right through them. You don't have parents telling you that you can't go out, so live it up! We are steadily chipping away at the stereotype that Hopkins students don't go to events and don't have any school spirit. As a new, un-jaded class of freshmen, you are the forefront of that change. So get your work done early. And then get out.

So unpack your underwear, turn on your lava lamp, put up your posters and take a look around. These will be the four most memorable years of your life. What kind of memories you want to make are up to you, and that should be a thrilling and somewhat scary thing. But don't psych yourself out, or you'll become either an alcoholic or a D-Level-dwelling evil elf. We have enough evil elves here to go around already, thank you very much.

Welcome to Johns Hopkins. You'll be fine.