DO: Knock on all doors. Take this both literally and figuratively. College is your chance to try new things and meet new people. Now is the time to determine whether you made it into a cool hall or if you have the RA that will cite you on your first night of NSO (not speaking from experience or anything).


DO: Make temporary NSO besties to go to all of the parties with during the first weeks of school. If you find yourself playing Pokémon GO in the middle of a party, we'd highly recommend that you stop and hit up the aforementioned NSO besties. Interacting with real people is sort of the whole point of going out––plus, frats are places where things are usually better left uncaught.


DON’T: Expect those same people to be your best friends for all of eternity. Friendships usually last longer when they’re not solely based off the fact that you both don’t want to be alone whilst intoxicated and wandering around the streets of Philly. You’ll probably see your “NSO friend” in your psych recitation second semester and have the urge to hide. But they’ll always hold an awkward, special place in your heart.


DO: Attempt to figure out what all the meanings of the “code names” are for frats with your roommate. It makes for a better conversation starter than, “So...how many AP classes did you take in high school?”


DON’T: Pee on Ben Franklin. Someone else will, they always do. Don’t turn yourself into “that guy” for the glory of being another largely printed statistic in the DP.


DO: Put identifiers like “boy in uncomfortably tight joggers” with people’s names and phone numbers during the first few weeks of school. You’ll be getting a million people’s numbers and suddenly you’ll realize “Matt” might refer to at least seven people. Plus, if you end up being really good friends with Matt who wears uncomfortably tight joggers, you can share this oh–so–entertaining nickname with him at a later date.


DON’T: Waste your inaugural DFMO on a tall guy whose face you can’t see in the middle of a dimly–lit dance floor just because your roommate is actively hooking up with someone and you want to keep up. His name is probably Josh and he’s most likely at least a semi–nice human being, but you can probably do better (we hope so, anyway). If you are still confused as to what a DFMO is, it stands for Dance Floor Make–Out, and you'll be getting real familiar with them soon enough.


DON’T: Sass the lovely people behind the counter at Allegro. They see you at your worst and will always be there for you with pizza or mozz sticks and other drunchies that will honestly change your life past 2:00 a.m.