#nsop

and I totally get it, because I had the same problem like 99% of the time we've been dating

Summer school’s ending this week, which means you! already! know! what’s coming up! I’m sure this is all you’ve ever thought about for the past two months at least. If you’re lucky and you got accepted ED like me, let’s increase that time to like 6 months. The first week of school is terrifying no matter the age, but for college students, the added stress of being on your own makes dealing with the bustle a bit more complicated than you’d expect. To assuage your doubts and concerns, I’m bringing you a comprehensive and general look at what the New Student Orientation Program, NSOP, will mean for you as someone trying hard to transition from pre-frosh to freshbait. The first week of school hardly even counts as real school because it’s all orientation, but tips for the journey won’t hurt. Let’s get started.

What You Should Know Before Getting Here

Of which there are a few things. If you’re at all interested in the things I’m about to mention, even just a lil bit, you should go to the events for them during NSOP. It’s easier to get your foot in the door now and then drop out if you don’t care than try to weasel your foot in a few months later. I learned this the hard way. These few things include:

pre-health (aka pre-med)

Greek life

placing higher in any track or out of certain tracks (like the language requirement)

buying a fridge, printer, microwave, or some class books

CCSC or ESC (student council aka SGA)

Actually, anything you are even slightly interested in you should attend. The information is invaluable as the year goes on, and it’s better to have it as early as possible. For pre-med and Greek life, you should go to the information sessions. For the placement tests, go to the sessions when they’re happening and try your best. For buying a fridge or the like, go to the EcoReps sale, all of them, and see what’s around. Yeah the line is long but if you really want to save money it’s worth it.

Another thing you should be thinking about before coming here is the matter of illegal identification. Yep, fakes. Fakes are crucial in New York life because all the fun happens at bars and in clubs (I might be saying this somewhat ironically). You also can’t buy alcohol here without having a fake, so your fun might be completely cancelled if you don’t have one. Of course, you could always get someone to buy you alcohol and pay them back, and you’ll be having to do that anyway while you wait for your fake to arrive. But this is something that you definitely want to be thinking about as you come here. Most people order fakes with 3-5 friends, because prices are cheapest that way. So find your people on campus, or put a post up on your Unofficial Facebook group over the summer. Fakes take about 2 months to come through.

You Made It, Baby! Now What?

Alright, so you drove up on 116th, maybe the only time during the whole school year you’re allowed to do that, and got a Blue Bin and finished moving in (mostly)! Left to your own devices, you probably have little idea what to do. So here’s what you’re gonna do.

For the most part, you’re going to know no one. Hopefully you know at least one person, and you’re going to tag along with them everywhere they go. If you don’t know literally anyone, check out my post on making friends during NSOP.

Go to all the frat parties, but definitely with friends. Especially if you’re a girl. Even at Ivies, guys have a tendency to get sleazier at night than they would in broad daylight. That being said, there’s really nothing like a frat party, so you should definitely party it up while you can, because no one goes to frat parties after freshman year.

Figure out what classes you’re taking. Sign up for the earliest possible appointment with your advisor, and talk it out. I was an undecided major when I came in, and my biggest regret was not taking chemistry because now, as a chem major, I’m doing a lot of catching up. My advisor helped me a ton in that she recommended I take calculus and a bunch of other classes that undecided majors usually end up finding beneficial for their major. You gotta sort this out as early as possible so that you know exactly what you’re looking for when registering for classes. Class registration is a fucking battlefield. Remember to use things like Vergil and CULPA to figure out your best schedule.

So many faces so few places. You’re going to meet a lot of people in a really short time period, so you need to get really comfortable with saying “oh yeah we met last night… sorry I was drunk, what’s your name again?” Don’t be afraid of using people as crutches to get to know other people, because there’s no such thing as knowing too many people.

Set a good impression with your RA. Y’all really need to be friends. Don’t drink or smoke in front of them, don’t throw outrageously loud parties the first week, don’t throw up in the bathroom bc you’re hungover but forget to lock the door (guilty). Become friends with your RA so that they feel awkward getting you in trouble and you can basically do what you want for the rest of the year.

Leave your door(s) open. The best way to meet people on your floor genuinely is to hop in their room and comment on their taste in music. So blast some Frank Ocean and rake in the friends.

Lastly...

Potholes and Rat Traps: What to Avoid

Columbia isn’t just a matter of what to do: there’s a whole lot of shit you’ve gotta watch out for, because no one tells you this right off the bat.

Don’t go to Welcome Week, whatever you hear about it. It’s really not worth commuting back, on the subway, at night, wasted, with minimal knowledge of New York at night. And the parties aren’t great anyway.

Don’t dress up for parties, regardless of whether you’re a guy or a girl. I don’t even have a rationalization for this one, Just...please. Don’t.

Don’t take notes during that first “Lit Hum class.” You know, the one in Roone Auditorium. No one read the stuff and you look like a tool.

Don’t spend all your time on campus. Be sure to go off campus with your friends, a new group each time, as much as possible, into the city, because you won’t have the time or energy to do so later.

Don’t spend all your time with friends. Find your favorite spots on campus all by yourself, so that you have a recluse whenever you need it. It’s good to get to know campus by yourself.

Do NOT go around hooking up with every cute girl you see. Or boy. Rape is a harder line to draw when it’s orientation week and everyone’s drunk and it’s easy to convince someone to do something that they would say no to in 3 weeks’ time. The rationalization for this is not dealing with the awkwardness the next day, but rather dealing with the fact that you might end up a rapist.

Don’t believe or become any of those “entrepreneurs” during NSOP, aka those kids who have a “startup” and want to advertise their thing or whatever. Believe me, they’re not going anywhere any time soon. It’s great to have ideas, and to have ambition, and to have motivation, but don’t get ahead of yourself and leave a buttload of embarrassing memories for the next few years. Save branding yourself for second semester.

Learning to pace yourself while drinking is an important step in moving from messy ‘man to sophisticated soph. Okay so I might have just made those phrases up. But for real, everyone can tell a freshman who has never drunk a lot before because they take seven shots of vodka in 10 minutes, and in another 15 they’re struggling to keep their dinner down. So yes, you will make an embarrassing alcohol mistake sometime during your freshman career. But it does not need to be that embarrassing.

More embarrassing than puking is letting your friend feel horrible the next day because you didn’t take care of them. You must call CAVA if a friend is puking, and if they black out, that’s also a sure sign. I know you’re going to freeze up when the time comes because it’s so hard to put a finger on it and say, yep, we’ve crossed the line, she doesn’t look fine, we need to call CAVA. No one wants to be the friend who called CAVA. At least not freshmen. But you have to do it. Freshmen are the most likely to get alcohol poisoning, and not calling CAVA because you “think” she’ll be alright seriously puts your friend’s health in danger.

Be careful with the jungle juice. Usually it’s fine, and at some frats like Lambda the jungle juice gets you the perfect amount of fucked up, but there are some frats that are known for putting drugs in their actual jungle juice, not just drugging individual drinks. Boys, I don’t know why you think you’re exempt because it happens to guys too. Both my friend and I got seriously messed up with jungle juice from a frat that I’m not going to name, and it’s almost as scary as I would imagine getting roofied is.

Final Result: OP 3 Blue Bird by Ikimonogakari is the Best Naruto Shippuden OP

1st: Blue Bird by Ikimonogakarai [OP 3] 2nd: Silhouette by KANA-BOON [OP 16] 3rd: Hero's Comeback by nobodyknows+ [OP 1] 4th: Nikawa Ame ni mo Makezu by NICO Touches the Walls [OP 13] 5th: Diver by NICO Touches the Walls [OP 8] 6th: Blood Circulator by Asian Kung-Fu Generation [OP 19] 7th: Sign by FLOW [OP 6] 8th: LINE by Sukima Switch [OP 18] 9th: Lovers by 7!! [OP 9] 10th: Totsugeki Rock by THE CRO-MAGNONS [OP 11] 11th: Hotaru no Hikari by Ikimonogakari [OP 5] 12th: new song by tacica [OP 10] 13th: Karanokokoro by Anly [OP 20] 14th: Closer by Joe Inoue [OP 4] 15th: Guren by DOES [OP 15] F-Tier: distance by Long Shot Party [OP 2] Tōmei datta Sekai by Motohiro Hara [OP 7] Moshimo by Daisuke [OP 12] Tsuki no Ōkisa by Nogizaka46 [OP 14] Kaze by Yamazaru [OP 17]

More tournament stats under the cut! I'll be adding my own ranking of Naruto Shippuden OPs in the replies, please add yours too!

[ Naruto Shippuden OP 3: Blue Bird by Ikimonogakari || Naruto Shippuden OP 8: Diver by NICO Touches the Walls ]