Guide to succeeding in college

An eight-step guide to ensuring people like you during your college years

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Sofia Bazant, Contributing Writer

While it is already November and more than halfway through the semester, there is no better time to reinvent yourself than the present. Here is a simple and infallible guide on how to be cool and make friends in college.

1. Set off the fire alarm to make more friends. Everyone is bound to thank you for the incredible bonding experience that stems from sitting outside in clusters on the concrete for 30 minutes with a blaring alarm in the background. There isn’t a more perfect way to assemble a group of potential friends than to strategically empty out your entire dorm (and let everyone know you set it off).

2. Protect the black X on your hand from Saturday night at all costs. Nothing could be cooler than walking into class on Monday with the X on your hand. If it starts to fade, don’t be afraid to touch it up. The glorious X is bound to remind everyone that not only did you go out, but you also haven’t showered.

3. Take a different person’s unassigned-assigned seat each day. There is something so magical about throwing off the entire class by breaking unspoken rules halfway through the semester. I would specifically advise taking note of where close friends in the class sit together so that you can take one of their seats and be welcomed into the group.

4. Set alarms for yourself and your roommate. If you are so privileged to have classes at 9 a.m., make sure to set an alarm at maximum volume (and hit “snooze” a few times) to save your roommate the trouble of having to set their own. Your roommate will inevitably be thrilled to kickstart their day with you by waking up at the crack of dawn hours before their classes.

5. Get to know your classmates through WIN stalking. WIN stalking is a wonderful method of gaining insight into where they are from and what they are here to study — everything you need to kick off a great conversation!

6. Make sure your Yakarma is high (and that everyone knows it). Obviously, you have Yik Yak, and hopefully an absurdly high Yakarma. Nothing screams cool like posting an abundance of anonymous tweets and, consequentially, receiving the overwhelming validation and recognition of your peers in the form of upvotes. If you are brilliant enough to obtain a high Yakarma, then it’s only fitting that you brag and flaunt about your talents.

7. Be persistent. Never ever give up on achieving your goals. If you text a classmate about meeting up to study and they don’t answer, it’s definitely because your text got lost in the mail and they didn’t see it. Try calling, FaceTiming or Snap texting them. If that doesn’t work, you could always attempt to find their location and just show up (who doesn’t love a nice surprise?).

8. Always one-up people. It’s crucial that you remind them that you got even less sleep, that you have even more homework and way more tests than them. Do they have a long club meeting tonight? Also, after a test don’t forget to tell everyone that you think you failed…and then follow up a week later and inform everyone that you actually got an A.

There you have it — all the tips and tricks you need to become the most successful and popular college student on campus. If you still don’t feel popular after all this, surely everyone else is too socially awkward to admit their admiration for you.