10 Things You Actually Learn In College

1. You will gain weight.

The “freshman 15” is a thing. Ignore everyone who tells you that you can stave off the extra pounds by eating well and exercising. Those things are only for people with will power, AKA freaks. But you’re not a freak; you’re a regular lazy college student. Accept your fate before it’s too late: Buy pants three sizes up, wear more black because black is slimming (also because it makes you look like the tortured artist you truly are on the inside), don’t make friends with skinny people whose metabolisms defy physics, and in general, just bash all the mirrors in your surrounding area because then you can continue pretending that you still have your bangin’ bod and ignore reality and/or your imminent diabetes diagnosis.

2. You won’t be the smartest kid in the room anymore.

You may have been the smartest kid in your high school graduating class, but that won’t necessarily be the case in college. Most of your college peers were the smartest kids in their respective high school graduating classes. To combat your newfound sense of mediocrity, become incredibly bitter and incensed and let everyone know that your genius is simply misunderstood, and that you are, in fact, the voice of your generation, and that your grades are but a trivial blip in the grand scheme of things. Also say something about Albert Einstein getting Fs in school.

3. College is filled with communist philosophers.

College is a time when everyone suddenly becomes a philosopher or a communist or a communist philosopher. Make sure you don’t get left behind. Become the most obnoxious communist philosopher on campus. Also, become a liberal feminist and tell everyone how you attended SlutWalk over the weekend and how pro-sex you are. Use the construction “slut” plus “hyphen” plus “some other word” as often as you can. For example, “Sleeping around is fine! I mean, I would never do it because I respect myself, but you do you! Don’t slut-shame. I love gays and gay marriage. Let’s go to SlutWalk tomorrow, and then go shopping, sluts! Except don’t buy that shirt—it’s slutty.”

4. You won’t have a clue what to do after graduation.

Don’t expect to know what you want to do after graduation. Chances are, you only went to college because it’s a thing people do after they graduate high school. Besides, life is full of adventure. If someone asks you what your plans after college are, be sure to tell them that you’ll go wherever the tide takes you. Or law school, that’s your backup plan (but like a really really really shitty law school because that is all your GPA will get you). Or you will go to grad school (but like a really really really shitty grad school because that is all your GPA will get you). Or you could avoid the entirety of what is sure to be an incredibly awkward conversation by running in the opposite direction of the asker, because really, who cares what you’re doing after you graduate? Keep pretending you’ll be a student forever, and you’ll be fine.

5. Only ninjas go to every class.

Be prepared to miss at least 30% of all your classes. Sometimes you’re tired. Sometimes you’re hung over. Sometimes you’re mentally incapable of dragging your limp, dead, hopeless body out of bed. Sometimes you have a paper to write. Most times you’re asleep. Science has proven that college students don’t operate properly before 1PM anyway, so don’t feel bad. Besides, even if you did go to class, you’d probably waste most of it dozing off or surfing Facebook anyways, so in reality, you’re better off just staying at home.

6. You will need to drink lots of coffee.

God told me to tell you to drink lots of coffee. Who needs regular water when you have expensive bean water? Coffee is the opiate of the masses. Coffee is the nectar of the heavens. Drink as much of it as possible in the morning and even more of it at night. Throw hot coffee in people’s faces when they tell you to stop drinking coffee, and then drink some more coffee. Become Lorelai Gilmore. Or better yet, become one with the coffee. Drench yourself in coffee so that you will absorb it faster. Swim in pools of coffee and cry when the coffee runs out. But wait—Starbucks exists; drink their overpriced, burned mush and cry, you piece of filth.

7. Buy condoms.

Genital herpes is not attractive.

8. Get ready to protest.

Not all campuses have this, but many do. Even if you’re protesting the government’s dumb regulation of having nine vegetables a month to be alive or something like that, it’s still a protest! Even if your protest involves yelling at the café attendant about abortion for an hour, it’s still a protest! Even if you refuse to hand in homework all semester because you believe it’s not a fair evaluation of your understanding of the coursework, it’s still a protest! Remember to write that on your gravestone when your mom kills you because you flunked out of college.

9. Netflix is your friend.

Don’t believe all those lies you were told about Netflix being the Greatest Tool For Procrastination Ever So Therefore Don’t Get It Because You Will Fail Everything Ever. Netflix actually saves about 9,000 college kids a year from forking their eyeballs out from boredom. If you ever feel desperate because you wrote one too many essays on the rise and fall of communism, or you did one too many questions for Statistics class, or you read one too many Russian novels, look yourself in the mirror (assuming you didn’t bash all of them, but if you did, look into your phone on selfie mode) and say the following affirmation: I will not fork my eyeballs out. Gilmore Girls is available on Netflix. I have a reason to live: Seven seasons of Gilmore Girls are available on Netflix.

10. People will tell you that your degree is useless.

Punch those people in the dick. You paid thousands of dollars you don’t even have for this degree. You went into debt for this degree. This degree is your baby. Plus, on the bright side, undergraduate degrees are becoming more and more worthless with each passing year, so at the end of the day, you’re all fucked, engineering and philosophy majors alike. Besides, you didn’t earn your degree for anyone but yourself, unless you did it only because your dad said it would make you lots of money, in which case, punch your dad in the dick.