This is a continuation of a series of things to know before going to college. As the title says, this is the third part thereof.

11. Locate lesser-used restrooms.

While dorm restrooms are regularly maintained (usually weekdays), the fact is, not everyone who uses them practices proper hygiene. It’s usually other students who make the restrooms difficult to use. What’s more, the sanitation staff is often away on weekends.

Therefore, there is benefit to locating restrooms less frequented. To this end, it helps to procure a campus map, and put some time into locating restrooms in other buildings. As you find them, mark them on your map along with the times that the buildings are open. Another thing to note is whether the buildings are open on weekends. After having done this, you can assign priority to restrooms in the event that you’re in a hurry, and have reference for availability.

There are several recommendations that can be scouted out. One would be near the admissions office. This is because the school wants to make a good first impression, and that’s often the first restroom one visits in that school. Another one to try would be in the main office building. That place gets a lot of visitors, so there’s reason for the school to keep the restroom well-maintained. An excellent place to try would be the library. After all, the library usually only has a few students at a time, and they might not even think to use the restroom while there.

If you have to take a shower, you’ll probably have to use the ones in the dormitory. It’s doubtful you could use the one in the rec center, but considering that it’s used by a bunch of jocks, would you really want to?

There is a bit of a peeve that I can bring up, here. Some students make a point of not flushing the toilet after they’re done, in an apparent effort to save water. They’ll usually do this if they only go number 1. What makes their efforts annoying and self-defeating is that the next person who comes in is going to flush before sitting down. People already hate when water splashes up and hits them on the bum when they’re dropping a deuce, when that toilet water is mixed with someone’s pee-water, that makes it even worse.

So, what’s a person do to? Flush before sitting down. Then, once their business is accomplished, they do their duty by flushing for themselves. So, one person comes in, then doesn’t flush. Then the next person flushes twice. The net total of water saved is exactly zero. Another failed attempt at environmentalism pointed out by some guy who over-analyzes things.

12. Be an activism avoider.

There is something about activism that appeals to a restless desire to bring about change. While college is seen as a natural place for it, you’d be much better off keeping activism separate from your college experience.

Avoiding activism is a good idea because activism is, as it has always been, a fast and effective way to get in trouble. And getting in trouble in college often means one’s college experience coming to an end.

So, don’t let it be you. If you see a bunch of kids gathering together and making a ruckus over the Social Justice flavor-of-the-week, just avoid them and find another way to get to class. They went to college to throw temper tantrums, you’re there to better yourself. Eventually, these kids will tire themselves out from banging some pots and pans together, and return to their dorms having not accomplished a thing. Either that or they’ll have worked themselves up to rioting, with some of them having been arrested or facing expulsion (inclusive or, because it’s likely it could be both). In any case, you should recognize that there’s no benefit to being counted among them.

Years later, you’ll be ordering a coffee at Starbucks, and they’ll be the ones to serve you because they wasted their college years attempting yet another failed communist uprising.

13. Don’t expect any privacy on the school’s network.

Once upon a time, people acted on the internet with almost complete anonymity. That age has been over for a long time, but there are still those who believe that this is still the case.

What does this have to do with college? It means that you have to be rather well-behaved while on the school’s network. This is because the IT department can see what you’re doing on their computers. And your own, if you’re using the school’s network.

If your classroom has computers provided, the instructor will be able to see what’s on your screen using their own. In a software course, I remember that the instructor called students out constantly for playing flash games during class. And it kept happening, as though no one was figuring out what was going on.

In another class, a student was caught looking at DeviantArt pages by the instructor, who told him that it wasn’t time to look at “furry porn”. Yes, he actually called it that. And the same student was caught doing the same thing again. He was again called out for it, but still somehow avoided getting in trouble.

In another incident, a major motion picture company brought to the school’s attention that one of the students pirated two movies. The school then sent out a mass email telling whoever is doing that to stop. I remember that one of my classmates admitted to his friends that it was him, though it’s possible he was joking. After that, another mass email was sent out, because apparently, the same thing happened again.

The use of mass emails doesn’t mean that the school couldn’t figure out who it was. But it’s possible that the motion picture company knows the device used. Motion picture companies tend to go after large companies rather than individuals, because large companies tend to have more money to go after. Considering this, the college would have great interest in finding out who’s behind it.

The takeaway is, school networks are a terrible choice for cybercrime.

14. Parties are generally a bad idea.

If you buy into the mainstream narrative, then you see college as a place to go crazy with the partying. And I mean crazy, lampshade wearing, neckties as headbands, par–tayz!!1 because that’s apparently the way they do it! Except don’t do it.

Partying in college is generally an insanely idiotic idea. Why? Because at parties, things get carried away and people make regrettable choices with consequences. And because people get drunk at parties, which results in hangovers, which makes studying a whole lot harder. And because you don’t have time for it. And because not everyone there might be of legal drinking age, and you don’t want to be anywhere close to there when that gets busted.

Contrary to some popular misconceptions, college is not a place for acting like an inebriated dimwit. It’s for just the opposite. The idea is to become good at doing something so that you can spend the rest of your life doing what you want to do. Parties are where people end up doing what someone else wants them to do after their inhibitions have been sufficiently crushed.

Don’t be dumb.

15. Don’t associate with cheaters (and don’t cheat).

This is one of those things that goes without saying, but saying it anyway gives me an opportunity to tell another story.

In my freshman year, one of my classmates tried to cheat on tests. I myself wasn’t aware of it until after he had dropped out, but according to another classmate, he would try to text him during tests for answers. He told him that he shouldn’t be doing that. The cheater had a kind of deer-in-headlights expression to him, so it would seem that the work was a little much for him, but it was hard for him to back out. Eventually he did, and didn’t bother returning the next year.

It’s unlikely for a person to cheat their way through college, since if a person doesn’t understand the curriculum, they likely aren’t clever enough to avoid getting caught. But if someone somehow was able to pull it off, where would they go from there? Because they didn’t really have what it took to get through college, they didn’t develop the skill necessary to thrive in their trade. So, what then? Is it their plan to BS their way through the rest of their professional career?

It really seems like it would be less effort to study hard while in college than to maintain a ruse through the rest of one’s life.

More to come? Yeah, there is.

Part 1 of this series
Part 2 of this series
Part 4 of this series