Freshman Year-in-Review


So I've finished my freshman year of college at the fine establishment that is the University of Wisconson-Madison. Definitely and interesting experience. It was all right overall, but there was definitely some stuff to bitch about. I submit this article as some first-hand experience and advice for anyone who is going to Madison, thinking about going to Madison, or wanted to go to somewhere else but only got into Madison.

The Good:

Classes: Surprisingly, this was one of the best parts of the year. I was almost always intellectually stimulated, and only occasionally bored. Here's the class breakdown:

  • Polisci 106: Half stand-up act, half lecture. I had a hilarious professor, and world politics is pretty interesting too.

  • Polisci 104: American Politics is less interesting, but I had yet another great prof. It's hard to beat someone who always refers to New Jersey as New Fuckin' Jersey and has a long discussion about federal policy with regards to sex with chickens. Priceless.

  • Econ 101: Not nearly as boring as it sounds. Learn why your liberal friends are wrong. Plus, a hot professor never hurts. That's right. A hot econ prof. In Wisconson. Wow.

  • Food Science 120: The Science of Food. No class, no matter how great, beats a class you watch on TV. That's right, no going to lecture ever. The material was even okay. You can use science to prove to your vegan friends (or hopefully enemies) why they are misguided fools.

  • French 232: It's all good if you're into that kind of thing. I had the frenchest professor ever. Even frencher than Jean Reno, if that's even possible.

  • Calc 221: This class might be okay of you're cut out for that sort of thing, which I most definetly am not. Ah well, it was an okay class to play Game Boy in.

Kickin' it: Probably the best part of school. Classes aren't a six-hour-a-day commitment like high school, so you always have plenty of time to dick around. I spent this time playing video games, smoking, watching bad TV, and of course wasting my life on the internet downloading various and sundry disgusting videos (Try www.steakandcheese.com. It's nasty!). Also, across the street from the dorms is a nice three-dollar theater, at which I saw many really crappy movies. But hey, I'll see anything for three bucks. What's that you say? I should have been spending my time studying? Yeah, well, screw you. I studied enough. Kinda.

Dorm Drinking: Can't find yourself a house party? Just a little too underage to hit the bars? Why not drink in your dorm room? That's right, they're not just for sleeping and watching TV anymore. All you need is a case of cheap beer, some hoodlum friends, and something stupid to do. Watching bad TV can be fun, I highly recommend "Are you Hot?" because it's a great opportunity to call girls hot/ugly without getting slapped. Video games are also a solid plan, because they give you an opportunity to pummel your friends when someone else wins. Guaranteed to turn into a fight. One thing we did that was good times was stealing a table from the den and playing quarters on it. Just be careful, because drunkenly flailing in a tiny room will result in something getting broken, and keep quiet, because nobody wants to get written up. The only big downsides to dorm drinking are that it gets a little boring after a while, and in a poorly ventilated room full of people, you will start to go crazy from no air and spilled beer-stank. Just go outside, run around, and all will be well.

The Bad:

House Parties: A novelty for the beginning of the year, but the fun wears out really quick. You get to stand in the corner of a crowded ass house with your friends while you try to avoid getting Milwaukee's Best Light spilled on you. It gets tiring watching retarded frat boys who think they're the shit trying to pick up the drunkest girls in the place. Everybody wants to fight over stupid shit, and god forbid you try and help a girl avoid a drunken asshole, that's just asking for a beating. The only good part of house parties is doing your own little covert ops and stealing shit. Especially if they've got a fog machine. Wait for a blast of fog then sneak through and grab yourself a bottle/tapper/cup/whatever you can get your theiving little claws on. Good times. Just keep house parties to a minimum. Once in a while is alright, but wandering the streets every weekend looking for anyone who will sell you a cup is no good.

Wisconsonites: I'm going to generalize here. A lot. Maybe you're from Wisconsin, and you think it's great. That's fine. You may or may not be an asshole. That's for me to judge. But on the whole, my experience with wisonsonites was not great. Here's what I have learned: 1.) People from Milwaukee think that they're really tough, just because they're from Milwaukee. What is it about that city that makes people say "Don't fuck with me, man. I'm from Milwaukee." Beats the hell out of me. 2.) If you are into any sort of "scene," be it art or music or whatever, you are automatically the coolest fucking person in the world, and anyone else's tastes are so passé. Conversely, 3.) 50 Cent is the greatest artist in the history of man. *sigh* Only in Wisconsin.

Dorm Food: It's bad, but it could be worse. More than anything, it's just boring. The "Thing of the Day" is always really crappy, so most of the time you'll resort to getting cheeseburgers, which aren't too bad. Avoid anything that sounds foreign or fancy. And eat out as much as you can.

The Ugly:

Classy Drinking: I don't think I drank a single bit of good booze the entire time I was at school. On the contrary, I drank a large collection of the worst swill money can buy. For vodka, we drank the Fleischman's, which is horrible straight, and only slightly less horrible when mixed. Don't drink it, unless you only have Phillips, in which case it is mana from heaven. As far as beer goes, we drank Blatz, because it's REALLY cheap. Nine bucks a case cheap. And hoo boy did we drink a lot of it. Every time we got beer, it was Blatz. It's not good, but a least it's rediculously cheap. Perhaps the least classy thing we drank was Carlo Rossi jug wine. That alone isn't so bad, but it was shitty wine, and we wanted to get drunk faster, so we mixed it with vodka. Ecch. And of course, we drank the single most vile concoction ever, consisting of Jim Beam and Mountain Dew Code Red. Don't drink it unless you want to vomit immediately. If anything, it's a good Ipecac replacement.

Assholes: Oh, man were there a lot of assholes at Madison. The kind of people who want to fight because you look at them funny, get pissed because you want beer from the keg, or start shit because you think that their shitty music is shitty. These people are everywhere. At parties, on the street or in class, they make your lives miserable. They fall into two different categories: First is the Jock/Fratboy party asshole. This is the guy who wants to fight over your spot in the beer line, doesn't apologize when he spills on you, and will take no interruption in his effort to bone the drunkest girl at the party. Then there is the super-bitch, who thinks that any sort of friendly gesture directed at them means you're hitting on them and they need to call asshole fratboy to defend them. Ironically, these are the same girls who get really drunk and get taken advantage of by those same guys.

Street People: I'm not just referring to homeless people here. There are all sorts of people doing obnoxious crap out on the street, like panhandling, or hawking jesus, or handing out socialist newspapers. The real homeless people I have no problem with. The bad ones were the people who you can tell used to go to school there, but then they saw through the "bullshit" of "the institution, man" and now ask for money from other broke students. They got no change from me. As for anyone who was trying to promote any sort of view or cause, I made it my personal mission to make their lives miserable. I argued with socialists, yelled blasphemous things at the jesus-people, and crumpled up handouts right in front of anyone who wanted me to vote for anything. Satisfying.

So that about sums it up. Despite all the annoying shit, it was still a pretty good year. For all of you entering college, let this serve as a cautionary tale, and for those of you already done with your freshman year, I wish you luck in the future. Expect another article like this next summer, and learn all about student ghetto apartment life, living with your girlfriend, and keeping fish. Excitement.