We’ve seen the list of things to do while attending Cornell, and while there is an immense amount of fun activities to do around campus, there are certain things we should all avoid. Don’t:
- Write your email down for more than three clubs at ClubFest. The emails never stop.
- Waste your time at Cornell Health.
- Open a tab at Loco.
- Wear flip flops in the winter.
- Trust your Collegetown landlord.
- Ask someone about their summer in Ithaca.
- Hit on your TA. Wait, maybe try that one.
- Go to every single one of your friends’ acapella concerts and club performances. There should be a friends and family discount.
- Not go to every single one of your friends’ acapella concerts and club performances. You selfish friend.
- Decide not to go abroad. You uncultured scum.
- Get a tattoo of Low Rise Seven on your ass cheek. Someone beat you to it.
- Doubt the Cornell admissions office. They definitely don’t favor legacy students, it’s been that way since my mom went here.
- Go to fishbowls after freshman year. The novelty of little plastic animals fades quickly.
- Go to Okenshields.
- Ever think the winters are done. It’s only April 30.
- Fall in love with a Collegetown establishment. It’ll be gone by the time you graduate.
- Expect to keep in touch with O Week friends. :(
- Order XXX spice at Louie’s. You’ll be in a stall for the next two days.
- Forget to pack your Canada Goose.
- Have a Goose.
- Call it Bear Necessities.
- Go to a Cornell Football game.
- Drive down Catherine Street. Unless you’re prepared to reverse the whole way back.
- Buy a textbook from the Cornell Store.
- Join a business fraternity.
- Major in applied engineering physics. That should go without saying.
- Take a class with a twelve year old. He’ll ruin your curve.
- Think an 8:40 a.m. is ever okay to take.
- Think a 9:05 a.m. is ever okay to take.
- Sled down Libe Slope without gloves.
- Expect Cornell to cancel classes when there’s a high chance of frostbite.
- Expect to get work done in Mann.
- Expect not to have a prelim the day after Fall Break.
- Fly out of the Ithaca Airport.
- Let anyone tell you it’s not okay to wear a ski mask.
- Forget about your oceanography weekly questions.
- Puke on a TCAT. If you do, don’t catch it in your hands.
- Skip Dos Amigos on the way home. Chicken Quesadilla with hot salsa so you feel alive.
- Go number two in Olin stacks.
- Get a Trillium Buffalo Chicken Burrito before the class where you sit next to your crush.
- Wait until Senior year to take your swim test.
- Miss Chili Fest. Hell, you should even enter your own recipe.
- Live on West Campus.
- Try to come up with 161 things not to do at Cornell.
- Smoke in the room next to your RA.
- Delete Denice Cassaro’s emails without skimming them.
- Run for president of a fraternity.
- Talk shit about the Tri-State area. Chances are the person behind you is from there.
- Be from Westchester.
- Take Swedish massage without a friend.
- Take outdoor tai chi. Two hours every Tuesday and Thursday of moving in slow motion in the freezing cold.
- Drink La Croix.
- Attend every single info session. Sorry AEM majors, after a certain number of evenings in suits, it’s a waste of time.
- Go to Slope Day sober.
- Use the bathroom at Loco.
- Take computer science as an English major.
- Order food when you go Sake Bombing.
- Wear anything you care about to a frat party. I think something’s growing on my Vans, feeding off the stale beer.
- Order fish at Nasties.
- Listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving.
- Trust the printing system. By the end of four years, you will have spent hundreds.
- Share your Netflix password.
- Set foot in Willard Straight Hall without opting for the free popcorn and conversation.
- Forget to get your free flu shot.
- Expect to sleep a human amount of hours.
- Stand too close to a frat’s speakers. Tinnitus is a bitch.
- Get so drunk you pee on your roommates laundry.
- Wake up 15 minutes before a prelim.
- Forget to try this.
- Ever listen to a do not touch sign. No one’s the boss of you.
- Smile at anyone during the winter. It’s a rule.
- Have sex in Olin stacks, you’ll get caught.
- Forget a change of clothes if you plan on doing the walk of shame the morning after Halloween.
- Expect to only get what you came for at Wegmans. Their layout is perfected to persuade you into buying 12 extra items.
- Forget to hassle tour groups around campus.
- Leave your hair wet before a walk to class in the winter. Both frosted tips and literal frosted tips will ruin your hairdo.
- Tell anyone you injured yourself in an IM game. Tell them it happened while you were doing something cool. Hang gliding.
- Get a pet gecko. They eat live crickets. Crickets go everywhere.
- Forget to update the world about your professional ventures via LinkedIn.
- Go through Cornell without having spent a full school-week at Loco’s assorted evening events (Margarita Monday, Karaoke, Tequila Corona, $5 Longos).
- Take your hands out of your pockets from the months of November to April.
- Be guilted into buying things from quarter cards.
- Casually sip a Keystone.
- Miss the Base concert.
- Forget to pregame wines.
- Drink jungle juice.
- Go home for Fall Break.
- Drunk text your ex.
- Send any “U up?” texts.
- Walk barefoot into the dorm showers.
- Become a fifth year.
- Attempt the Pines Challenge unless you’re ready to puke.
- Start an Instagram account for your Cornell class.
- Let your girlfriend tell you not to grow a mustache in November.
- Let your boyfriend tell you not to dye your hair.
- Post something on GreekRank.
- Try to read everything you’re assigned. Have confidence in the fact that SparkNotes was invented by a former student somewhere.
- Go through a full semester without petting a dog. It’s one of the seven deadly sins.
- Miss the three weeks in Fall semester when it’s nice to be at the gorges.
- Become friends with someone who writes for The Sun.
- Become dependent on melatonin pills.
- Treat Emergen-C as antibiotics.
- Lend a friend your deodorant.
- Laugh at Professor David Pizzarro’s jokes in intro psych. Just kidding, that’s impossible.
- Forget to buy your own toilet paper. Being an adult is hard.
- Watch movies about high school. The nostalgia at viewing Dazed and Confused is too much to handle.
- Run for Mayor of Ithaca after graduating.
- Say you’re from the city if you’re from Jersey.
- Brag about being a Hotelie. Spending your life in one building is real hardcore stuff.
- Go four years without having your parents buy you a dinner at Gola Osteria.
- Forget to tell your parents to get an AirBnB two years before graduation.
- Turn down the chance to dunk your friends for philanthropy on Ho Plaza.
- Say no to getting involved in the app idea your friend came up with. Before you know it it’ll be bought by Google.
- Hesitate to audition for Mediocre Melodies.
- Wear other colleges’ clothing around campus.
- Use your phone in Professor Van Es’ introductory statistics class.
- Complain about the cold to an East Coaster. They’ll judge you for months.
- Go four years without playing squash. Great first date idea.
- Pay for the TCAT. It should be free all four years.
- Try to create your own secret society. Coming up with names is harder than you think. They end up sounding like Pokémon games: “Jade and Scepter.”
- Show fear when urinating in public.
- Go skiing at Greek Peak with your friends that watch ski videos. They’ll take you to a Black Diamond and you’ll have to scoot all the way down.
- Forget to create the perfect playlist for the road trip to Niagara Falls.
- Classify yourself as a bartender if you work at Loco.
- Pick the flowers at the Cornell Botanical Gardens.
- Answer a phone call during a play at Schwartz, you lowlife.
- Do a walk of shame when it’s below 30 degrees.
- Accept a forced triple.
- Forget to memorize the Alma Mater.
- Make up a name at the door of a frat party.
- Neglect to call your parents. They’re bored without you.
- Get addicted to nicotine. This is our dystopian future.
- Get caught without your Blundstones.
- Go to Moonies with any Cornell gear on.
- Venmo for a freshman-year dorm-room pregame.
- Forget to recycle.
- Go to the ROTC Bring a Friend day.
- Leave your house without an umbrella. Ithaca weather is the epitome of unpredictable.
- Forget to brag to your peers about your older siblings who went to Cornell.
- Fall in the hole on College Avenue, it’ll never be fixed.
- Take the bottom bunk.
- Forget to stock up on Pedialyte.
- Neglect to take pictures at Indian Creek Farm.
- Doubt the value of a Chegg account.
- Be scared to sue the TCAT after they splash you with snow slush.
- Leave your window open when you leave for breaks.
- Lock yourself out of your dorm when you leave to shower.
- Talk about your past hook-ups with your significant other in the room.
- Fake being in shape when you’re walking up the Slope. We all know you’re dying.
- Lose your student ID more than once.
- Sweat missing grilled cheese day at Zeus. It’s overhyped.
- Let your friends get significant others before you do. At 11:30 p.m., they’re all in bed and you stay up to watch the episodes of New Girl when Nick and Jess finally get together.
- Pay for parking on campus. The risk of a ticket is an adrenaline rush.
- Classify the pizza at CTP as real pizza.
- Forget your clingy friend’s birthday. You’ll never hear the end of it.
- Wear an oversized backpack on your first day to class. You don’t need more than a notebook and a laptop.
- Try to drive in the winter if you’re from the West Coast. It’s scary.
- Be the person who doesn’t know your order at the front of the line at Mac’s. Hey, you’re the worst.
- Wash your new, red Cornell gear with the rest of your clothes. Say hello to a lot of pinks.
- Caption your picture “Ithaca is Gorges.”
- Take a second for granted. Cornell is kinda great, mistakes like these are what make the experience worth it.
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