First things first: I’m a freshman. As a freshman, I came into my first weeks at Hamilton College with a certain set of expectations for what I was going to see, do, and generally experience. Not all of these expectations were realized—for better or for worse—and here are the top seven most relevant epiphanies:
1. Lanyards are nerdy.
I was so pumped to continue making use of my pretty sweet Hamilton lanyard on campus. You can imagine how disappointed I was to find that upperclassmen locate freshmen by their lanyards.
2. Your orientation trip mates will be your good friends, but not always your close friends.
The orientation trip is a four day expedition—either camping in the Adirondack mountains, learning about different subjects in a hands-on way, or volunteering in the Clinton area. The honest truth is that you will become very good friends with the people on your trip. You will bond over trail spice in your food, not showering, late-night campfire games, and bathroom habits. However, this kind of friendship will not last for your entire group. Many of you will stay in contact, and some of you might stay close, but it is just as likely that some of you will drift apart. You’ll still be friendly, but as you meet more new people and as schedules pull you away, some orientation camaraderie will likely weaken. And that’s okay.
3. The meal plan is actually really easy (once you figure it out).
It has taken me a solid couple of weeks to learn this and I’ve made plenty of mistakes when it comes to the Diner (more on that later). Here is the first-year meal plan, laid out in plain language: every day, you are allowed three “swipes” of your card (aka entrances to a dining hall). After you have already swiped your card and left the hall, you can return during that same meal period by “reswiping” your card instead. If you want to use your card at the Diner, then you need to tell the cashier that it is your breakfast/lunch/dinner swipe. If you want to eat later in the same meal period, you can enter one of the dining halls using a reswipe, but you cannot do that the other way around.
4. It’s a bad idea to eat at normal times.
The dining halls and the Diner get crazy busy during the normal eating hours: specifically 8:30-9:30, 11:30-1, and 6-7 on weekdays. If you go during slightly earlier/later hours, you can avoid the long lines (and maybe even get a fork, which is a known problem in Commons dining hall).
5. Yik Yak is a prevalent force on campus.
Before coming to Hamilton, I had barely heard of the social media app Yik Yak, the anonymous form of Twitter. Here on campus, everyone uses it, whether as a reader or as a poster, and it can be both an entertaining source of information and a brief distraction from homework.
6. LATE NIGHT BREAKFAST IS A THING.
Late night breakfast, otherwise known as Diner B, is something I had never heard of. Why, I have no idea, but I’m glad it exists. It starts at midnight at the Diner and you can buy it using bonus swipes (a complicated enigma that I still cannot begin to understand), campus dollars, or regular money. The hash browns are to die for.
7. Everyone is beautiful—inside and out.
I will admit—this is a beautiful campus in more ways than one. The buildings are nice, yes, and the trees are gorgeous, but the people are beautiful. There are stylish, girls and guys alike, and pretty people in general. However, everyone is just as beautiful on the inside. Hamilton students are genuinely nice and willing to help out a poor, lost, little freshman, which is a very comforting thing to know as you try to navigate an entirely new environment.