70 things I learned in my first semester at Michigan

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
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<p>This is a tribute to <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-michigan-ann-arbor/1261021-69-things-i-learned-first-semester-freshman-year-michigan.html?highlight=university+of+michigan+freshman+orientation%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-michigan-ann-arbor/1261021-69-things-i-learned-first-semester-freshman-year-michigan.html?highlight=university+of+michigan+freshman+orientation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>1) Michigan is the best place on Earth. You'll learn to love it quickly or else consider transferring here --> Welcome</a> - The Ohio State University</p>

<p>2)If you're fan of eating breakfast, consider the 150, 200, or unlimited meal plan. Note: If you think you'll go to the dining hall at least twice a day, 150 is NOT enough. You will run out will quickly and rely on easy mac and hot pockets.</p>

<p>3) Easy Mac and hot pockets are the way to go</p>

<p>4) Markley is hands down the best freshmen dorm. Sure, the rooms are small and the bathroom sinks are always filled with vomit, but you'll get a kickass freshmen experience. Oh and not to mention Afterhours.</p>

<p>5)Afterhours is the greasiest, awesomest food ever. Makes for awesome drunk food if you're rocking a dorm party.</p>

<p>6) Dust off your gamecube cuz you'll be playing a lot of super smash bros instead of doing the gen chem OWLS</p>

<p>7)Gen Chem OWLS suck! </p>

<p>8)Michigan is cold! Dress in layers and bring a bunch of thermals</p>

<p>9) In-state people will call soda, "pop". Its weird, but you'll get use to it. </p>

<p>10) Welcome week is awesome. Take advantage of it! Go out every night, because you'll quickly realize that finding parties is not NEARLY as easy once the school year starts.</p>

<p>11) Don't go overboard during welcome week. Yeah, its awesome! "Yahh college!!", but that kinda mentality will get 2 MIPs and a very expensive hospital bill...not speaking from experience of course</p>

<p>12) BUY FOOTBALL SEASON TICKETS AND GO TO ALL THE GAMES! For God's sake, you go to MICHIGAN! Even if you've never watched football a day in your life, the games are Awesome! You'll only have so many tailgates and football saturdays, so take advantage of EVERY SINGLE ONE! You will never see as much school spirit as the very first game.</p>

<p>13) You automatically hate everyone from OSU...nothing personal</p>

<p>14) Freshmen 15 is a thing. Soooo much beer. But don't worry, Ann Arbor is a huge town, and you'll lose a bunch of weight walking to and from parties.</p>

<p>15) 8 AM Classes...hahahah nuff said</p>

<p>16) 9 AM Classess hahahah nuff said</p>

<p>17) 10 AM...yeah you should probably go these</p>

<p>18) Everyone is a hungover zombie come Friday morning.</p>

<p>19) Time management is key. Work hard during the day, so you have to socialize and party at night. Note that Football saturdays take up all your time! Don't even try to get work done. </p>

<p>20) Schedule for a football Saturday:</p>

<p>-Wake up hungover
-breakfast at mojo (M-waffles for school-spirit)
-tailgates (Sig Ep and the pit is where its at)
-football game (you probably will fall a sleep for the first half)
-Sing the victor song a billion times
-Dinner (dont go to east quad, its super crowded)
-Parties</p>

<p>21) Sunday is work day. It is probably the only time you'll have in the week to get some serious work done. Take advantage of it.</p>

<p>22) Mojo cookies are a gift from heaven. Softest, warmest, more chocolately cookies you'll ever eat.</p>

<p>23) insomnia cookies is the exception to number #22</p>

<p>24) Use the Mbus app and website religiously, especially if you're an engineer.</p>

<p>25) If you're an engineer, first semester of college = not that bad at all. Its gets real tough in your later semesters, so take advantage of your free time here.</p>

<p>26) Free time...you probably won't have any, but if you miraculously do, do this stuff:</p>

<p>27) Pledge a frat. I've heard pledging is the best thing ever and the worst thing ever. Either way, prepare for little sleep and lots of drinking</p>

<p>28) Super smash bros. Pikachu is deadly.</p>

<p>29) Drink...hahaha like you weren't going to do it already</p>

<p>30) On a serious note, you don't have to drink if you don't want to. The University has awesome events for the sober! Umix, concerts, parities, etc...</p>

<p>31) Clubs! Sign up for all of them, even though you won't have time for most of them.</p>

<p>32) IM sports, they're pretty competitive though. It seems like everyone at Michigan and their mothers are track stars. </p>

<p>33) Pizza. You will get sick of it after welcome week, but you'll eat it anyway.</p>

<p>34) Calc 2 is the most failed class at Michigan. Avoid it if you're not an engineer. If you're an engineer, run for your life!</p>

<p>35) Simple rule for North Campus: The scenery is absolutely gorgeous. The people...not so much.</p>

<p>36) If you're an engineer, you'll be eating a lot of panda express. Prepare your chopsticks skills, when you're not coding.</p>

<p>37) Engr 101 isn't that bad...unless you don't know how to code. In that case, it will be painful. </p>

<p>38) Don't step on the "M". Even if you think you're a hot shot, who's above the law. Its a matter of tradition, not being superstitious :) #schoolpride</p>

<p>39) If you're lucky, the Jimmy Johns guy will be throwing out free jimmy johns at 11 AM Monday,wednesday, or Friday outside the chem building. Be there!</p>

<p>40) Have a date? Want to go on an off-campus adventure? Yes? Wrong answer! Going off campus is extremely expensive if you're freshmen and don't have a car. Plus everything you could possibly want is within walking distance.</p>

<p>41) Don't bring a car. There's no parking (Billy Magic will tell you this), and its a headache. Walk everywhere or take the bus. It works!</p>

<p>42) There is no grocery store on campus, so get use to going to CVS often.</p>

<p>43) Buy cereal and milk! It saves so much money when it comes to breakfast.</p>

<p>44) Don't buy food at the big house. $6 for a hot god...seriously?</p>

<p>45) When you're drunk, you will not make the best financial decisions. </p>

<p>46) Drunk food: pancheros, Quickie burger, pizza bobs, insomnia cookies, back door pizza</p>

<p>47) Save your blue bucks for laundry.</p>

<p>48) Great good for when you're not drunk: Peta pit, pancheros(always good), chipotle, panda express, amos, BTB Burrito. There's a bunch of great restaurants that I haven't gotten around to checking out in Ann Arbor. </p>

<p>49) Libraries are absolutely crowded during finals week. My recommendation is that you stay in your residence hall, because 1)you don't have to go outside and 2) there are a bunch of designated study spots in each dorm</p>

<p>50) Wear Maize at football games, NOT blue. Trust me. Its worth it when you walk into the big house for the first time and see a sea of Maize.</p>

<p>51) Maize is not yellow. There is a difference.</p>

<p>52) Orientation is a blast. Don't stay in your dorm. Go meet people, play mafia, play "euchre" (another Michigan thing that we out-of staters just don't understand), or go to your first frat party. Make sure to stop by insomnia cookies.</p>

<p>53) Same rule applies to welcome week.</p>

<p>54) Go outside often in September, because when november rolls it gets cold. REAL COLD.</p>

<p>55) Squirrels are really fat at Michigan. I don't know why I noticed that...</p>

<p>56) Beer pong is a lot of fun! Though, most frats don't want to waste beer, so you'll play with water instead. </p>

<p>56) The pit is INSANE</p>

<p>57) Michigan has amazing social experience, but its academics are just as incredible. Don't forget that you're in school.</p>

<p>58) Getting a job is easy at Michigan.</p>

<p>59) Saving your money is not as easy...</p>

<p>60) Schedulizer.com rocks!!!!!! though, being a freshmen, you'll lose a lot of the classes you want to sophomores and upperclassmen</p>

<p>61) Backpacking sucks!! #60 makes it better tho :)</p>

<p>62) Get good at teaching yourself the class curriculum. Sometimes your professors will sucks, and your GSI's won't be any help. Good thing we live in the 21sth century and there are SOOO many online resources. Seriously, go to itunes U, or youtube and you can find an identical course to what you're taking</p>

<p>63) Michigan is huge, and sometimes you can feel quite small, alone, and homesick.</p>

<p>64) When you're bored, leave your door open. Opportunity and friendship will walk through.</p>

<p>65) go to ccrb. Its free and who needs the freshmen 15 anyway</p>

<p>66) There are sweet deals on food during exam week. </p>

<p>67) You'll make a fool of yourself multiple times. Who cares. Its freshmen year, and you'll make memories for life.</p>

<p>68) Tuition is crazy expensive..but its worth it</p>

<p>69) Michigan is an amazing place</p>

<p>70) Go Blue!</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Lol .</p>

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<p>*hot dog </p>

<p>haha my bad</p>

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<p>I don’t know… I think $6 for Thor is a good deal ;)</p>

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<p>Hey! If I’m paying $6, I expect a much hotter god than Thor…</p>

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<p>Agreed that Calc II is awful. The CCRB is almost as painful to deal with as well.</p>

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<p>Haha great post, agree with everything party/drinking related but i’m an engineer and I gotta disagree with the easy first semester (just meaning it won’t be like that for everyone). I had to take ****ing gen chem and chem lab and it was the hardest semester of my life. My next semester schedule already looks so much better and easier, it’s all math and physics and programming which is a lot better for me. I guess it’s just better too because as time goes on because your classes are more specific to your major and smaller with more professor interaction so it ain’t that bad. </p>

<p>Also Calc II was a joke hehe</p>

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<p>Oh yeah. General chemistry was hell. And chem lab was even worse. I have heard depending on what you are majoring in that it gets easier (IOE), but for me (EECS), I have heard that it actually gets a lot harder. </p>

<p>And I heard the only reason calc 2 is failed so often is because its highest level of math that LSA kids have to take, but for engineers its just another calc class. I aced calc 3 this semester, but then again…I’m an engineer :D</p>

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<p>It depends on what the LSA kid is doing. Some of us will go up to DiffEq and beyond, and others don’t even need Calc I.</p>

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<p>oh yeah I meant premed. But yeah, if you’re in LSA and have like a math/science-related major you’ll definitely need more math</p>

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<p>oh man… another one</p>

<p>4) It varies
7) They do
8) It is going to get much colder, FYI
9) Calling pop “soda” is weird
10) Your social life does not have to revolve around finding parties. It can if you want, but there are many options
12) If you aren’t going to go, don’t buy them. The student section doesn’t need to be even MORE empty than it is now
14) It does not have to be. I lost weight. It depends a lot on how much beer you are going to drink
25) Your first semester probably will not be bad. It depends on how many “weeder” courses you take. But these are weeder courses for LSA, not really engineering, not yet. So if you can’t handle them, really think about if you can handle an engineering workload.
27) Up to you. It is actually a small part of campus and you may never have any real interaction with frickin greek life
28) Lol. Ice Climbers
29) see 30
32) If you compete at A level, yeah. Men’s A soccer and Men’s A flag… damn
34) If you have the AP credit to skip it, then skip Calc 2. If not, if you are going to make it as an engineer, you shouldn’t have too much trouble. But I know guys that got a C+ in it and have done much better since then. It all depends on the situation
35) The people are fine
36) Forks
41) As a freshman, no. No need for a car
58) Campus job? Or full time after school? Even as an engineer here it wasn’t “easy” to get my job. You’ll have a lot of interviews, flights, applications, etc. No one will hand you one (for the most part)</p>

<p>A few more</p>

<p>71) It is going to get colder. Just wait
72) What you think you know, and what you say about the experience at Michigan now will change as you go through your 4 years.
73) You most likely will finish your 4 years with a much different group of close friends than whoever you are hanging out with now freshman year. Not a certainty, but like I said, a lot will change after freshman year.
74) Engineering will get tougher. There will be more coursework. The low kids will drop and everyone will know what they are talking about. All of the dumbA$$#$ in Gen Chem that think they will be Pre Med, or Calc 1 that think they are getting into Ross, or w/e, they won;t be there to improve the curve going forward. Not nearly as much.
75) Frat life, partying every night, drinking yourself into a coma; not the only path. Whatever you are looking for, there is that group at Michigan.</p>

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<p>

Preach!</p>

<p>Living so close to the airport, I offered to give several of my warm-weather climate friends rides to the airport. A few of them said something to effect of “well, at least winter is half over!” </p>

<p>I didn’t correct them. No need to depress people right before the holidays. ;)</p>

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<p>“Calling pop “soda” is weird”</p>

<p>It is called soda pop no? </p>

<p>[The</a> Pop vs. Soda Page](<a href=“http://www.popvssoda.com/]The”>http://www.popvssoda.com/)</p>

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<p>Will I be able to escape calc II if I pass the BC AP exam?</p>

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<p>If you get a 5 on it. But literally 40%-50% of the kids that take it get 5s</p>

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<p>Calc ii is a joke at michigan. Don’t believe the people that say it’s hard; they’re either not engineers, dumbasses, or both</p>

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<p>Also it’s soda dammit. Pop sounds like you’re a five year old girl</p>

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<p>You just completed your first semester at Michigan… I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. </p>

<p>Also, it clearly is pop.</p>

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<p>“Also it’s soda dammit. Pop sounds like you’re a five year old girl”</p>

<p>Pop sounds like my dad or a what would happen in a fist fight. </p>

<p>Soda sounds like a five year old girl wearing a frilly dress.</p>

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<p>Michigan sounds like Animal House maybe my kid should do Cornell engineering instead.</p>