So you've got your major. I'm not impressed. You'll probably change your mind at least twice before you graduate anyway. What will remain constant in your life, however, is the three-week-long shitstorm that is midterms. Midterms week is my favorite part of the term, as controversial as this may seem. If done correctly, these torturous weeks can become some of your most cherished memories at Dartmouth. I've compiled the following list of suggestions to help you excel:
-
Prepare yourself. No, I don't mean print out class lecture slides beforehand and take notes during class with one of the 13 different colored pens you have in your backpack. (If this sounds familiar, you're probably a freshman. Stop reading now and use all of your extra free time to fill out a transfer application to the University of Chicago.) What I really mean is that you need to shower. Twice. Do laundry. Buy deodorant. Shave all parts of your body that you feel socially obligated to shave (no judgments). These activities will soon seem irrelevant, so it's best to address personal hygiene early. But be warned: The better you smell, the worse everyone else smells.
-
Get silly. If you thought that Tabard's lingerie show was the weirdest thing you've seen this year, you aren't paying enough attention. Most people are operating on dangerous levels of some or all of the following: caffeine, amphetamines, sleep deprivation, stress, angst, sexual frustration. Get on their level and embrace it. Talk to people you hate and who hate you. Offer to get strangers food from Novack and then flirt shamelessly. Colonize the communal spaces in freshmen dorms and intimidate the residents until they leave.
-
Be firm, yet just. Socially ostracize the 1902 newbie who sets the alarm off after 2 a.m. Everyone in the room will bond over this except for the culprit, who will leave to go study in his room while weeping silently.
-
Stop complaining. Yes, the act of reciprocal venting bonds us, but don't call me out for being a senior taking an introductory anthropology class. I know I can't possibly imagine how much work you have, how much stress you're under, how unfair your professor is and how steep the curve is, but I don't care. You chose to be premed/an aspiring financial consultant/a philosophy-computer science-Japanese literature triple major writing a thesis, so live with it.
-
Be real. Never use the phrases "social justice" or "global health." You care much more about money and status than you do about de-worming orphans in Senegal, no matter how many one-week service trips to Haiti you've been on or how many pictures you post on Facebook with unnamed ethnic children staring reverently at you.
-
Share. Be that kid who scans the book pages in the course reserves and blitzes them out to the class. Spend five minutes explaining a concept to a kid in your class you don't know. And when someone inevitably asks you for the notes you took on the day she was "sick," offer them even though you know her excuse is bullshit.
-
Keep morale high. This is the single most important thing you can do more important than sleeping, learning the course material, writing coherent sentences or eating from more than one area of the food pyramid. During midterms, there are no rules, no adult supervision, no social norms and no standards of hygiene, so you're free to use any means necessary to suppress the overwhelming urge to spontaneously die. Watch every YouTube video that features koala bears, casually browse Wookieepedia (the Wikipedia of "Star Wars"), beer bong bottles of champagne on second floor Berry while crying blood whatever keeps you happy. Midterms are a marathon, not a sprint.
