[Steady Reign]

Today is the first day of school for thousands of students heading back to the University of Washington for classes. The majority of members of Steady Reign are proud to be alums of the state’s most highly accredited university. To commemorate our years spent at the UW, I’d like to share with you a list of some of the most USEFUL things I have learned while being a student at the University of Washington:

Note: All of these were from my very own personal experiences.

15. It’s OKAY not to do any studying throughout the quarter until the night before the final. We still managed to get through every class and pass with flying colors.

14. Always find ways to make the class go by faster. Some of the techniques we’ve learned are: watching people fall asleep in class and hitting their heads on the desk behind them, drawing doodles of other people in the class, and lastly, coming up with nicknames for every person in the class (i.e. Anime Guy because he looks exactly like an anime character, or Suicide Boy because once he was so bored in class, he pointed his fingers in a form of a gun and pretended to shoot himself.)

13. Avoid being in Red Square so much that when people don’t see you kickin it on the steps, they think something has gone terribly wrong.

12. Pulling an all-nighter with a bunch of friends the night before an exam will not get you higher scores. You’re probably better off not studying at all and going to bed early than to spend hours goofing off at the computers until the wee hours of the night.

11. Dante is your best friend. Not only is he there for you no matter where you go on campus, he has a folder named “public_media” that allows you to store unlimited amounts of data. Having 2GB of music on there definitely helped me study at Odegaard.

10. Best place to sleep is the 3rd floor of Odegaard. Just put together a couple of chairs next to the sofas and there you have it, a makeshift bed. Only problem is that library staff will call the campus police to wake you up because they think you’re a bum.

Odegaard is also always the best place to meet someone. “Meet you in front of Odegaard” can be said for anything from meeting up for lunch to meeting up to carpool.

9. Line Rider. When in computer lab for a class such as IS or INFO, or any class the requires all the students to work in a computer lab, it is more important to learn how to be an expert in Line Rider rather than whatever the professor is attempting to teach.

8. Always wear a hat on test days. Although this doesn’t work really well in classes where the professor asks all the guys to turn their hat backwards.

7. “Getting help” from a friend sitting next to you during an exam is okay. Just make sure the accounting TA isn’t looking straight at you when you’re sneaking a peak. Afterwards, just be thankful that the TA is super nice.

6. Spending more time at the IMA than at the library studying will probably be bad for your grades.

5. Using other peoples’ card to get in the IMA is either a hit or a miss. Make sure you memorize the student number of the card you’re using in case they think the picture doesn’t look like you. Biggest no-no is using a female card for a male and vice versa. The first thing that pops up on the ID checker’s computer screen is the gender of the person. Once they ask, “It says you’re a female, but you kinda look like a dude”, it’s over.

4. Always look up while in the men’s locker room.

3. Parking at Montlake is always free. All you have to do is some “heavy lifting” of the yellow bars and you’re in.

2. However, 50% of the time, there are UW vans waiting for people to do exactly that. You counter that with having a “lookout” person every time you “lift”.

And for the #1 thing that I learned while I was at UW:

1. Do NOT ever make counterfeit parking permits for the Odegaard Parking Garage. It will only result in a $250 ticket and a trip to the VP of Student Affairs, which is WORSE than going to the principal’s office. Not to mention being put on student probation for an entire year where you have to stay out of trouble or else, get expelled from the UW. Lesson definitely learned. Trevor knows all about this one hahaha.

This post is tagged Balmer High, IMA, Odegaard Undergraduate Library, Red Square, University of Washington, UW