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"I will look so pretty in my new school clothes," I thought as I slid my perfect new floral dress over my hole-less pantyhose and trendy platform shoes. In 16 short hours, I would be a college woman. I was going to be sophisticated, worldly, and mature. I packed my new lace bedspread and floated into the minivan my parents rented, prepared to begin my next life phase with style.

Moments before our arrival, I made my dad pull into a rest area, where I broke in my travel iron, obsessively flattening all the wrinkles that had appeared on my perfect dress while I wrung my hands and anxiously shifted during the road trip. I touched up my makeup, re-sprayed my expertly styled 'do, and said a final "farewell" to kid-hood. As we pulled through the gates and into the parking lot, there they were. Hundreds of others, just like me. Hundreds of sophisticated college students -- all wearing perfect sweatpants?!

Learn from my mistakes, dear freshmen-to-be. I sacrificed my pride so that you may learn what not to do in college! Within a week of arrival, I learned several valuable lessons:

1. Wearing a dress, heels, and well-coifed hair on moving day is a really dumb idea. You will sweat more on this day than on any other day of your entire life. You'll haul 18 crates up 12 flights of stairs. You'll find out that your shampoo has leaked into your suitcase, which has leaked onto the floor, which you will trip on as your perfect pantyhose get a perfect run.

2. Lace comforters are only appropriate if you don't plan on having any friends. College friends sit on beds. There is nowhere else to sit. College friends eat nachos on beds. There is nowhere else to eat. College friends do laundry about twice a year, so if your bedspread is not nacho-camouflaged, you will sleep on sophisticated lace stains all year long.

3. You can't fit all the stuff you've accumulated in 18 years of life into your 5'x5' excuse for a dorm room. Homeless shelters are extravagantly roomy compared to the space allocated to most freshmen. Also, R.A.s (which technically stands for "Residence Assistants," but may be confused with "Rancid Authoritarians") generally don't permit storing your overflow in the hallway and/or hall bathrooms.

4. Speaking of hall bathrooms, pretend you are entering a third-world country, one where sanitation no longer has any tangible presence in your life. There are germs in college bathrooms unknown to mankind. I mean, these germs are visible. They are green and have beady eyes. Though I managed to pack 16 towel sets, complete with matching washcloths and fluffy hand towels, I neglected to purchase a good pair of flip-flops -- necessary attire if you actually plan on setting your piggies into a college shower.

5. Your college roommate, most likely, won't be your best friend forever. In fact, it's statistically probable that you will not even vaguely enjoy your roommate's presence. Believe it or not, this is entirely inconsequential. Other people's roommates are, without fail, cooler than yours. You will meet these other people. You will like them. You will hang out with them. You will snicker together about your roommate's mutated feet and tendency to talk in his/her sleep. All will be right with the world.

6. Once your parents have helped you haul your junk up all those flights of stairs, and they're standing there sappy-eyed, out of breath, looking like they may break down and call you "Pooky-pie" in front of your hallmates, it's time to kick them out. Sure, you love them, and you don't want to hurt their feelings. Tough tootsies. It's time for them to go home and cry over photos of you in the bathtub at age three, and time for you to find some orientation parties to crash.

7. No, yours will not be the exception to the "long distance relationships don't work" rule. Do you realize how many brave soldiers have come before you and failed? Does their example mean nothing to you? Well, if you're like I was, you're reading this all squinty-eyed and determined, saying, "Yeah, but you don't know us." Wrong, bucko. I do know you, and I'm only looking out for your best interests. It is tempting to make hour-long phone calls every night, and send goobery love notes and packages -- but this can only end in misery and despair. Get out now and retain the fantasy that you'll get back together with your high school hottie after you graduate.

8. For the love of Zeus, stay away from anything with Greek letters, at least for your first semester. There are many reasons for this. First, you need to get used to the fantasmagorical academic workload before you can schedule in daily drink-'til-you-puke sessions. Second, why not see if you can actually find friends on your own before paying a fee to force people to acknowledge you're cool enough to be seen in their sweatshirts? And finally, if you must join, at least take some time to step back and see which groups have good reputations/are filled with your kind of people/have the house with the best foosball table. Take your time and choose your allegiances wisely.

9. You know that story about you and your best friend Wally dropping a fake dead cat off the roof of Billy's house? Quit telling it. You're in college now. You'll develop new stories. Your friends-back-home tales, while undoubtedly hysterical to you, will quickly turn into "guess you had to be there" yawners to people who don't know Wally. Oh, and by the way, in two years, you won't know Wally, either. One of you will have a goatee, which will look bad, and you'll soon discover that Wally yawns when you tell the stories about you and Reggie stealing your college's team sheep.

May you go forth and have the kind of freshman year in which you do not ever have to look back and write up lists like this to help people avoid being like you. Get out there and do me proud, courageous students!

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