Op-Ed: You’re Doing Everything Wrong Already
O-Week is the time for establishing the foundations of your new social life here at UChicago. There are countless events scheduled to enable newcomers—yes, you!—to meet new lifelong friends and get acclimated to the UChicago community. Which is why it’s such a crushing disappointment that you spent so much time, or any time at all really, in your dorm room yesterday. We had Movie on the Quad, Gentle Yoga at Rockefeller Chapel, and even Late Night Challah Bake. All of these socials appeared in the welcome week schedule in the College Connection app, which you should have downloaded before you even got on the plane. What’s going on? Is something wrong with you? Are you socially deformed? Sure, you attended the RSO fair, but what are you doing standing there reading satirical articles? Whatever you think we said in the app, don’t forget that our real job is getting you rich enough to give us donations. Find an RSO that doesn’t seem too dorky and join up. If you’re able to get a small leadership position in a finance club by winter quarter and become president by the end of next year it would be great for your resumé.
Actually, never mind. Forget the social stuff. You should have a list of your upcoming classes and professors. Send some emails! Introduce yourself! Students who make an impression on their instructors are statistically more likely to get a job at Google. And it’s never too early to hit the books. You can always ask your science professors for some reading, which they will be delighted to give you, because that’s what they secretly want from you. Those academic connections with the badly paid postdocs who teach HUM will be invaluable when the time comes for you to get your thesis published.
Luckily for you, it isn’t too late. Sure, you’re a little behind your peers, but by reading your first HUMA chapter (you can ask an upperclassman, professor, or department head to find out what the reading is early) during O-week and getting started on your first paper after the first class, you might have a shot at getting your GPA back up to a nearly respectable 3.8. Remember that college GPA matters a lot, probably even more than your high school GPA did. Return to visiting colleges (for graduate school) during your third year, have your second paper peer reviewed by your fourth, and you’ll be well on your way to making 360k a year before age 30. No one said this college thing was going to be easy! Good luck, and remember, you signed up for this.
