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9 Signs You’ve Grown Up A Lot Since Freshman Year

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In a lot of ways, the four years of college fly by. Many find themselves in their last semester of senior year wondering where the time went, and how the hell they’re supposed to be working members of the real world in a short few months. But in thinking back to the person you were freshman year, there’s actually a number of ways you’ve grown up by senior year.

1. You’ve switched from vodka to wine.

Freshman year: 8 p.m. arrives which means so has your weekly task of finding an empty plastic water bottle to fill ¾ full with Burnetts, only to it drain again by the end of the pregame.

Senior year: You’ve learned that there is nothing better than the getting ready glass (or four) of wine. With wine, it’s acceptable to start drinking when you get home from class, and then ride out your buzz until it’s time to start pregaming and drown in what’s remaining in the bottle by 8 p.m. It’s the best way to get equally as drunk as you did with vodka, yet look classy and put together while doing so.

2. You’ve learned the best chasers.

Freshman year: You bring a water bottle to the dining hall when you go for dinner and fill it with whatever sugary soda/juice mixture will make your $8 handle of vodka not taste like rubbing alcohol. Hint: there’s none. An $8 handle of vodka will always taste like rubbing alcohol.

Senior year: For the times when wine just won’t cut it and it’s actually necessary to take a few shots (like weekends, or before chapter), you’ve learned all the best, most practical chasers. Most importantly, you’ve learned the hidden gem trick of chasing with cheap beer. You get drunk at a quicker rate, which means you can start texting your hookup, loudly requesting the songs you want to hear, and screaming when one of your friends walks into the pregame, all the sooner. It’s a win-win.

3. You actually use a wine opener instead of stabbing your wine with scissors, or buying only twist off bottles.

Freshman year: Ugh, you made the rookie mistake of not checking in store if you were buying twist off or not, and now you’re stuck in your dorm and can’t ask around for a bottle opener without risking your RA hearing you and writing you up. Your best bet is Google-ing ways to open a bottle of wine, until you eventually give up and just stab it with something, or resort to the half drank bottle in the back of your closet.

Senior year: You’re so grown up you have a fancy new wine opener. Bonus points if you have wine glasses, too. Peace out, red Solo cups of Franzia.

4. You know the best ways to avoid a hangover.

Freshman year: You finish your handle of cheap vodka, pass out in your bed (if you make it home), before giving even one more second’s thought to how badly you’re fucking yourself over for tomorrow.

Senior year: You know yourself best, and you know that nobody’s got your back quite like you do. Therefore, before you leave your apartment, you leave out Aspirin, a cup of water, and your credit card with a note to drunk order food. The calories don’t count if you don’t remember consuming them, and your non-hungover self will thank you tomorrow.

5. You can simultaneously take notes and iMessage on your laptop in class.

Freshman year: “OMG, first day of class in college, can’t mess this up. I better bring a notebook, iClicker, laptop, folder, and at least 3 pencils in case one breaks. Should I introduce myself to the teacher after class or is that too much?”

Senior year: *Opens Microsoft Word, iMessage, Facebook, Twitter, Insta, and TSM.* Ready to learn.

6. You can seamlessly transition from your Twitter feed to your Microsoft Word page when the professor starts walking around the room.

Freshman year: Feeling ~rebellious~, you open up your Insta to see if your crush has liked your pic, but obviously are still cautious enough to only open it for long enough to check your like-per-minute ratio. Then you immediately close your Internet before the professor notices you’re not taking notes.

Senior year: You’ve learned the cues of when a professor is going to start walking around checking laptop screens and are always one step ahead of him. Also, you don’t really care if he does see you reading “What Sororities Were Like In 2006 Vs. 2016.”

7. Your Snapchat game has improved… kind of.

Freshman year: You Snapchat the entire party from the second you start getting ready to the pregame to the party to the postgame. Sometimes you even bless everyone with your equally hilarious stories of you and your group’s hungover adventure to the dining hall.

Senior year: You no longer make 300 second long Snapchat stories, but rather play a much simpler yet more dangerous game of sending Snapchats to that guy from class, and that guy from Kappa Sig, and that guy you met at the bar, and then racking your brain the next day to remember what they said.

8. You’ve realized the important things in life, as well as the unimportant things in life… like chapter.

Freshman year: Chapter is serious and you sit quietly in the back and don’t check your phone. You take notes in your planner of all the philanthropies coming up that week because you absolutely need to get your philanthropy and service hours.

Senior year: Chapter is a continuous inner monologue of “Is this girl seriously still talking? What the fuck is her position even? Did she become president without anyone noticing? No? Then why the fuck is she still talking? Ugh. How much longer? Am I gonna be home in time for The Bachelor? This could literally all be in an email.”

9. You’ve learned how to budget your money.

Freshman year: You spend your entire life savings on every single piece of apparel with letters on it, your mugs are monogrammed with letters, and you buy blankets and pillows for your dorm room that have letters on them. You don’t even care that you’re broke because at least you’re broke in letters.

Senior year: You’ve learned that you’ll look like an actual idiot and literally not be taken seriously by anyone if you walk around in sayings like, “It’s not four years, it’s for life,” and therefore spend that money on things like nice wine (see #1).

Cheers to taking on the real world with a glass of non-twist off wine in hand, and an Aspirin and water a few hours later because you are so f-ing mature.

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