Whether you’re a bright-eyed freshman, have switched your major three times so far this semester, or you’re a junior and somehow still not quite sure what you want to study, let me assure you that the major you pick will impact your entire life in a pretty big way. Freshmen especially, listen up: your major also plays a big part in who your friends will be, what your college experience will feel like, and how other students perceive you. Will it matter after you graduate in terms of getting jobs? Not one bit. But it will affect your social life, which is the most important part of college, obviously.
Your major is also extremely important because if you’re gonna be hungover in your 8am, you might as well enjoy the other 200 people in the lecture and have some interest in the class material you’re so desperately trying to retain. For those of us not sitting in that lecture hall (we stop making that mistake after one semester), and eager freshmen alike, here’s what your major says about you.
Accounting And/Or Finance
I hooked up with a guy with this major who freaked out at me when I asked what made his major so hard. Apparently asking him how entering numbers into a spreadsheet qualified as a legitimate course of study wasn’t the most supportive thing to do in that moment, but whatever.
If you’re majoring in Accounting or Finance, you’re probably super ambitious and a douchebag on the side. Honestly, I don’t doubt you’re better at money management than me, so please hit me up if you want to teach me how to save money or if you know what the f*ck a 401(k) is.
Looking into the future, you’re probably super pumped for the Wall Street summer internship your sister’s boyfriend promised to score for you, but spoiler alert: you’re really doing coffee runs and won’t see any daylight, so have fun with that, sweetheart! You’re likely planning on being the betchy version of Jordan Belfort (you know, without all those legal issues and hopefully no quaaludes) but in reality, you’re looking at a sh*t ton of time spent networking with your dad’s friends.
Basically, if you’re delving into a business school major, be prepared to both work and schmooze your ass off each year to get ahead of the rest of your class. Unless of course, you quit after freshman year to become a comm major. No shade.
Economics
It’s bizarre to me that econ majors and business majors have beef. Guess what? You’re all smart, you’re all annoying as hell, and you’re all equally as likely to either fail miserably or become the next Bill Gates!! You watch Bloomberg and read The Wall Street Journal while scrolling through that weird stock app I can’t delete from my iPhone. Obviously, you can also recite the entirety of The Big Short from memory.
I wouldn’t call myself an econ expert, so I’m not really positive how people actually apply their economics degree post-grad. You’re probably planning on going to even more school and becoming a professor or one of those try-hard ~cool~ high school econ teachers or something.
Political Science
Due to the interesting state of America today, these students are multiplying overnight. Poli-sci students tend to fall on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. Whether sporting MAGA hats with no shame or constantly skipping classes to protest whatever dumb sh*t came out of the White House this week, poli-sci wins as the most entertaining spectator sport.
If you have absolutely zero chill, did Speech and Debate in high school, and enjoy starting sh*t with your friends, this is the perfect major for you! You get a thrill from causing fights after four vodka sodas, especially when the bartender tries charging you $9 for the fifth. Just remember, “God Brad, don’t you realize you’re contributing to capitalist oppression!?” isn’t as good of an argument as you think when you’re slurring your words… especially when the bartender’s name is actually Ryan.
If this is your major, you’re probably planning on going to law school and becoming the next Liz Warren or RBG (good luck). Just remember, we can’t all be Elle Woods, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
Communication
Comm classes are the 21st century version of Noah’s f*cking Ark. Seriously, where else can you find a clueless fifth-year senior, a hungover VSCO girl, and a future Pulitzer Prize winner learning the same thing?
If you’re a comm major, you’re either constantly asking your friend which filter matches your Insta feed aesthetic or talking about the depressing state of journalism today. Comm majors are constantly posting on social media, remain the go-to friend for caption ideas, and daydream of comparisons to Walter Cronkite as you host your own MSNBC (or Fox News) show.
In any case, your parents are paying a sh*t-ton for you to spend four years lazily plagiarizing Wikipedia articles about famous journalists to graduate with a fairly limited amount of hard skills. Congrats.
Philosophy
If you’re uptight, a stoner, and have a bit of a superiority complex, philosophy is the perfect major for you.
When you come home for the holidays and your family asks about school, some of them shake their heads in disappointment, some of them have no further questions, and there’s a good chance your uncle will start an argument with you about Descartes’ theory of the self.
I’m minoring in philosophy and TBH I’m not even really sure what else there is to do with a philosophy degree aside from becoming a professor or marrying rich.
Theatre
literally no one:
musical theater kids: https://t.co/PwPukUbzt5
— sadie (@sadieoleary) November 27, 2018
These are the students you hear belting everything from Phantom of the Opera to Wicked to Mean Girls in the communal bathroom. Theatre kids are basically real-life versions of the cast of Glee (during those awkward seasons that followed them to college).
If you’re overdramatic, kind of narcissistic, and not completely tone-deaf, a theatre major will feel like home. You probably continued taking dance classes and doing community theatre loooong after your friends outgrew their second-grade tutus.
When you aren’t loudly singing in your dorm during midterms (please quiet the f*ck down, practice rooms exist for a reason), you’re inviting your entire Facebook friends list to the event for your upcoming class performance of Guys and Dolls. You’ll most likely move to New York or LA after graduation and spend the foreseeable future in endless auditions. Good luck with that—the whole world’s your stage, betch!
Engineering/Architecture
I know, I know, these majors are actually really different, but they both, like, do math and build a lot of stuff so they’re grouped together in my mind.
The only real interaction I’ve had with an architecture student is the time I wasn’t watching where I was walking and almost knocked their model building over. Architecture and engineering both seem really challenging, and since I’ve never met either type of student, I can only assume they spend even more time studying than pre-med students.
If you’re studying one of these subjects, you probably played with Legos until you were 17 and did really well in subjects like geometry and physics. Since so much of your time is spent studying and building stuff, you’d better hope you can at least tolerate your classmates. From what I’ve heard, engineering and architecture students “like, basically live in lab/studio,” so you have to be cool with becoming a hermit.
Everything I know about architecture is based on Ted Mosby (so I wouldn’t exactly call myself the most credible source on this one), but maybe you’re aspiring to design a skyscraper in NYC one day! We love #betchesinSTEM.
Pre-Med
While this isn’t technically an actual major, it might as well be. I’m not quite sure what pre-med students even learn about or how they do it, but anyone who has enough motivation to make it through a semester (or two) of organic chem is a better person than me.
You probably picked your major after binging Grey’s Anatomy for the first time. If you’re in pre-med, you have to be very patient (lol). You can expect to spend countless hours in labs and in the library. When you finally surface from the black hole of studying to go out, you’ll get stuck with whoever ends up puking, because “med school.” Your friends will probably treat you like f*cking WebMD any time they have a weird sneezing fit and tell you vivid details of alllll of their symptoms when they think they have a UTI.
Pre-med students should look forward to pretty much spending the rest of their young lives in school and residencies before finally starting to make enough money to pull themselves out of student debt.
Nursing
If you’re just as smart as your pre-med friends (but with more people skills) and aren’t into the idea of a decade of school and a ton of student debt, you should consider nursing! You get to take a bunch of science classes, learn all about medicines and the minor difference between them, and in my experience, nurses are a hell of a lot more fun to be around and they get cooler scrubs. Then when you graduate, you get to do a bunch of the same stuff doctors do, only you get way less credit, are paid less, and treated worse! Exciting!
Psychology
Spoiler Alert: Getting a 5 on your AP psych class does NOT mean you’ll automatically be good at college psych, trust me.
If you’re majoring in psychology, you’re probably not into letting your friend use Mercury in Retrograde as a reason to justify hooking up with their ex. It’s more likely that you’ll end up psychoanalyzing how their repressed experiences cause low self-esteem (which is such a buzzkill).
While some people who graduate with a psych major end up doing something totally unrelated, a lot of psych majors are truly doing the Lord’s work and making bank for it. Who else is willing to listen to the problems of bougie millennials and suburban moms whose kids have left for college?
Education
What’s good, future Ms. Frizzle? Education majors often get a bad rap, but we all know that teaching is literally one of the most important professions ever.
Education programs are home to washed-up camp counselors, patient saints, and future trophy wives alike. If you can tolerate anyone from children to pretentious sorority girls, like coloring, and basically own stock in Michael’s and OfficeMax for all the money you spend on school supplies, this is the field for you.
Who knows, you might go on to be a kick-ass teacher and change some lives, Dead Poets Society style. If so, try reeeeally hard not to be one of those assholes who takes a full school year to grade papers because if it’s not abundantly clear by the 15 emails you’ve gotten asking for an update, students hate that sh*t.
There are literally hundreds of majors (and minors) you can choose to study, and this list just scratches the surface. If you’ve somehow gone through the whole course catalog and still don’t vibe with any of the options, your next steps will probably be to either create an individualized major or re-evaluate if college is actually right for you.
No matter what you decide to do with the next four-plus years of your youth, be prepared to spend at least half of that time pushing your body to its absolute limits in every way: hygiene (yes bitch, you do smell after spending three straight nights in the library), coffee intake (“is six espresso shots too many? I have a final tomorrow”), and stress levels, because you’re in for a wild ride. Good luck.
Images: kaboompics/Pixabay; off campus / Instagram (2); sadieoleary / Twitter
Listen up, freshmen. We’re bringing back Betches Love This College, where we give you the no-BS rundown of all the schools you’re thinking of applying to. It’s all the sh*t your guidance counselor will never say.
With its slogans “Fear the tree!” (not particularly scared of topiary, thanks) and “Go card!” (still don’t get how a mascot can be a color tbh), Stanford seems quite deserving of the nickname “Nerd Nation.” Honestly, when I first arrived as a freshman, I don’t think I saw a single cute guy until maybe January. Fine, that’s an exaggeration. All the cute athletes volunteer to move in the freshmen to get early housing.
However, if you look beyond the nerdy trappings, you find a school filled with insanely talented students, inspiring professors, and yep, even a few really hot boys. (This is starting to sound like a YA novel.) And the beautiful Spanish colonial architecture (haters will say it looks like Taco Bell) and the eternal sunshine don’t hurt, either.
Stanford’s appallingly low acceptance rate makes it the most exclusive school in the country. If that doesn’t stroke the ego, tell me what will? In order to get in, you need a perfect GPA and exemplary extracurriculars. Real examples include: making the Olympics, having a million dollar company by 18, or finding the cure for Ebola. If that doesn’t apply, then hopefully your parents are capable of providing a new library.
Yes, a huge chunk of the student population does not see the light of day because they code 24/7. And yes, our administration sucks and is trying to murder fun on campus (more on this later).
But for the remaining 10% of our student body, there manages to be a wide range of entertaining activities (*partying…school…brunch…gym/sport…partying…internship…partying*). Most of the student body practically killed themselves in high school to get here. So now, some people just want to unwind once they arrive.
Does that mean occasionally wrecking university property by ripping doors off refrigerators or throwing television sets off roofs? It appears so. (Some of the student body is also quite stupid, despite their acceptance here suggesting otherwise). But it also means debating politics in our sorority’s lounge till 4am, wholesome dinners at True Foods, and yes, a year of endless drinking (aka sophomore year, when Greek life feels all-encompassing before students remember they’re at Stanford to get a degree, not just to party.) There’s a reason that Stanford is not only nicknamed “Nerd Nation,” but also “Camp Stanford” in the spring.
But first, since this is a highly academic school, let’s discuss every freshmen’s biggest and highly premature worry: WTF to major in.
Majors
Computer Science: CS majors whine endlessly about how hard 107/110 is and can be found in office hours/at the LaIR in Tressider waiting for help. Everyone (including me) will eventually take a CS class, even if it’s totally unrelated to their major. Stanford drums into our head that CS is a valuable skill for everyone. Honestly, I can’t even complain because my TA last year was one of the hottest guys I’d ever seen. I actually showed up to his section just so I could stare at him for an hour. If you don’t give up on CS because it’s “too time-consuming” (read: hard), you’ll eventually work at Google or Facebook or Microsoft. ~ Just Stanford things ~
Other engineering majors: IDK exactly what they do. Occasionally I’ll overhear these majors discuss their workload. They never leave Green (the prison-like library on campus) and are the type of people that think college is just “another challenge to get through” aka people who are doing life wrong.
Humbio (aka Human Biology): The professors cater to all these basic b*tches that take the Core by spending two weeks on why 75% of the world is lactose intolerant, affirming the importance of their almond/oat/coconut/soy/rice/hemp/pea milk preference.
Bio (aka Biology…duh): This is for hardos who want four-hour labs and impossible exams instead of inanely absurd Humbio exams that seem right out of an AP bio class.
EarthSys (aka Earth Systems): For vegans, decent people who care about the environment, and people who want to go on free vacations to the Galapagos.
If not pre-med, any of these majors will rave about how “free” they feel now that they’ve escaped (read: given up) on the organic chemistry pre-med grind (RIP Chem 35).
Pre-Meds: Usually one of the aforementioned majors that freak out about the fact that while they’re killing themselves in Chem 35, the techies have time to get sloshed every weekend and will one day make billions while they earn a pittance as a doctor.
Math/Physics: You better be really f*cking smart.
Econ: These students are insecure about the fact that they doing a “weaker” major than CS or even the natural sciences. And they complain about the Core. Endlessly. They’re obsessed with working for Goldman or BGB or McKinsey or whatever finance people do. The literal only people you will ever see wearing a suit on campus.
PoliSci (Political Science): Will disappear for a few quarters to “study abroad” in Europe (aka get legally drunk for a quarter) or Stanford-in-Washington (a fake study abroad program in DC). Will start school wanting to help the world by going into politics. By the end, they’ll be competing with econ majors for finance jobs or applying to law school.
Psych: “I just love listening to people’s problems! Like, did you hear about how Christine got transported to the hospital again last weekend?”
Humanities: “I know it’s not the most practical major but I just want to follow my passions” … will either sell out, be poor, or marry rich.
The People
Freshmen: Ewwww, do we even care? (Kidding…sort of…Stanford aggressively loves frosh.) The newbies are more apt to be social even if they were total f*cking weirdos in high school. They congregate at all-campuses (when the frats are required to throw parties that allow freshmen) and freshmen parties (when 50 kids squeeze into an 8×8 dorm room). They also love talking about “dorm love!!” as though they’re actually going to speak to anyone on their hall a year from now.
Upperclassmen: 90% of these students don’t even go out. The rest are nicknamed the “social 500” but to be honest, it’s probably closer to 200. Most social people are involved with Greek life, but some are on sports teams that can’t rush, or didn’t join but are still a part of the social circle. In addition, some anti-Greek but hard-partying folks do co-ops (super alternative commune style houses) instead. Which also supposedly have crazy parties.
Speaking of Greek life, it seems all-important sophomore year. Really, the only people who care about it are those affiliated. The rest of the school (and most of the professors) think it’s pretty stupid. This is probably because Greek life is perceived as an exclusive group of mostly white, wealthy, privileged students. I’m speaking as someone in a sorority who loves it, but it’s still a disquieting fact of life that ought to change. That being said…
Sororities
Theta, Kappa, and Pi Phi: The top s’rat picks during Rush (often in that order), and in general, the ones with the best social calendars. Their reps on campus can be inaccurate person by person, but here ya go…
Theta: Gets the New York/boarding school crowd. A few are a little too social-climby (one girl literally once ran around a party screaming everyone has to love me because I’m a Theta!) but some of them are super chill.
Kappa: Gets a lot of the athletes and has a rep for being the rowdiest, but also a little less united because they don’t have a physical house, which kind of sucks. But you’ll find them all drawing together in Mirlo anyways.
Pi Phi: This one is a mix of internationals, some studious goody-two-shoes, and some super social girls. They’ve also been on probation for about a billion years.
Beyond those three, Tri-delt is also a popular choice during rush. It caters to a slightly more alternative community who wants to experience the close bonds of sisterhood without some of the more superficial aspects.
There are some other sororities too, but those are the most popular/competitive if you care about that stuff (and TBH if you’re reading this, you probably do).
Fraternities
KA: The best frat, hands down. It has all the hottest guys. Between the entire water polo and men’s volleyball teams (both of which must recruit guys based not only on skill but also attractiveness from what I’ve seen), you can’t go wrong. They’re obsessed with snappa, and can be found playing it even on a random Monday night when the rest of the campus is studying.
KSig: This is the other top frat. They come off as incredibly douchey, though they do throw some fun mixers and even the occasional decently entertaining all-campus. It’s also the frat that Evan Spiegel was in…remember that whole email scandal?
Sig Chi: This was a really fun house until their Nationals yanked away their charter because the boys “didn’t adhere to the values of Sigma Chi” (aka they didn’t agree with their Nationals’ sexist, racist, and homophobic values). Just your daily dose of some more old white dudes f*cking everyone over with their prejudices.
Snu and TDX are other popular frats. SAE grabs a bunch of football/baseball guys too. But the others are probably my favorite three.
Housing
Freshmen live in either ancient dorms (@Wilbur/Stern) or anti-social nicer dorms (@West Campus). So either they’re living in a crumbling dorm with 50 years of old vodka and vomit stains the carpet, or they have no social life. It’s all up to the mercurial whim of Stanford housing.
Sophomores live in random places or their Greek houses, which are also usually low-key dumps. The fact that KSig hasn’t been condemned for stuffing eight guys in one room and, like, literally keeping a pet pig in the house is beyond me. The s’rat houses are slightly nicer but are tucked in a lonely corner of East Campus because Stanford likes to pretend Greek life doesn’t exist.
Juniors live abroad/random places. Seniors tend to live in beautiful houses on the row that are unaffiliated with Greek life. They have a similar structure with a private chef and way better community than traditional dorms.
Things To Do During The Day
Everyone (besides a few actual geniuses that somehow manage to excel at school whilst being blacked 24/7) studies a ton. I recommend working outside at Coupa or Tressider with your friends while people-watching for that hot athlete you hooked up with. Green Library is a windowless hellhole and a great place to go if you need to make yourself feel depressed in order to concentrate.
There’s really nothing to do in Palo Alto besides eat out (see the food section below). If you’re feeling ambitious you could drive into San Francisco for the day, but SF is really just a dirtier and less exciting version of New York so…no?
Besides studying and eating, people really spend their free time partying (it’s all about that healthy work/life balance). During the fall, it’s tailgate SZN (#hard4card) which means wearing red, drinking lukewarm Natty, and pretending to care about football. In the spring, there are a plethora of darties (Dunch, Linner, and Endless KA are the most popular), which means foam, waterslides, and blackouts for all.
Things To Do At Night
Palo Alto, though beautiful and surely a great place to grow up if you’re 10 and your parents work for Google, is a fairly boring and exorbitantly expensive college town. Plus, all Palo Alto bars are extreme hardos about carding.
So, the nightlife centers around frat parties. Stanford has become lame in the past few years by endlessly putting frats and s’rats on probation. But covert mixers will inevitably occur and there is usually at least one frat capable of throwing some fun parties.
Mixers with frats are the most fun since they’ll usually have themes. For example, “heaven and hell” or “mock marriage”. They involve activities at different stations. Like at a Vegas Wedding themed event, one of my friends got ordained on the internet and married me off to some senior. So I might have accidentally gotten married last year… IDK, though. DM me if you’re aware of how binding internet ministers are.
All-campuses, parties where freshmen are invited, are usually pretty boring. The room gets packed with a bunch of lame-o frosh. It’s occasionally fun if the themes are good. Eurotrash, the first big party of the year, is always entertaining. Especially laughing at all the mustaches the boys grow for the theme.
Self-ops (ie: houses on the rows that have private chefs but are not affiliated with Greek life) will also serve themed dinners that are hugely competitive to get into. French house does crepe night (crepes + wine), Casa Italiana does pizzeria (pizza + wine), and now Narnia does Bagelmania (bagels… and probably wine). There’s a super competitive lottery that lasts for five minutes to get a table, and everyone freaks out about it.
Tequila Lounge used to the one off-campus place to go, but that closed last year (RIP) though supposedly it’s re-opening. I want more 12 dollar tequila shots PLZ God!
If none of the above is happening, girls are forced to lie around their s’rats and complain that “Stanford is becoming sooooo lameeeeee!!” I don’t know what everyone was expecting when they applied to a school literally called “Nerd Nation.”
Food
Dining halls are pretty mediocre, though Wilbur brunch is fine (they have an omelet and smoothie station, so it could be worse).
Housed sororities (Pi Phi, Tridelt, and Theta) all have pretty good food since they have private chefs, as do a lot of self-ops on the row like French House or Casa Italiana.
Palo Alto also has some great restaurants (got to feed all the tech billionaires), from Nobu to Sweetgreen.
Weird Stanford Traditions
In case you haven’t caught on yet, Stanford is filled with some strange people. So obviously the school has some strange traditions.
FMOTQ (aka Full Moon on the Quad, aka Full Mono on the Quad): a night where everyone assembles on the quad on a full moon and tries to kiss as many people as possible. Conspiracy theory is that Stanford wants to ensure everyone graduates from college with a first kiss under their belt. A hell of a lot of the students arrive straight from their mother’s wombs.
Guys walk around with bingo charts (hook up with a 2400 SAT score, hook up with an Olympian, etc.) because men are stupid. It’s sort of like a real-life kissing booth minus the paying part so it doesn’t feel like school-sanctioned prostitution. Stanford (in their everlasting goal to make things less fun) tries to discourage people from coming if they have mono. They also hand out Listerine to try to prevent the spread of germs. Since one girl gave 50 guys mono freshman year, guess you can’t really blame them.
Naked parties at Synergy: Synergy is a co-op and one of the most alternative ones. It’s literally nudist (IDK how they get away with this) and they apparently host naked parties. K.
Fountain Hopping: Jumping in the chlorinated (because ew, mildew!!) fountains that are sprinkled across campus is a freshman tradition. I love wearing a bikini in the middle of February when it’s snowing back home. It reminds me why I love California.
Bay to Breakers: Everyone at Stanford wakes up at 4am, takes shots, dresses in rally, and runs a 15k race in San Francisco. And by run, I mean walk a mile before bailing for brunch because the combination of zero hours of sleep (there’s always a concert the night before) and drinking at an inhumane hour means you feel like you’ve been run over by a truck repeatedly.
Stanford Marriage Pact: This was an Econ project that went viral by claiming they used a Noble Prize-winning algorithm to match you to your future partner should you both still be single by 30 (given the lifestyles of many kids at this school, v likely). Probably the most Stanford thing I’ve ever heard of. Resulted in a lot of interesting DMing, and sadly did NOT include a look or height preference section. So à la Sierra Burgess is a Loser, some very strange matches were made.
Before You Graduate, You Should…
When my aforementioned very hot CS TA asked us this in section on the first day of classes, he received a very blank look in return. Before you graduate? Shouldn’t you just, like, be studying and preparing to transition from Palo Alto to Mountain View to work at Facebook/Google?
However, this is my best shot:
- Find these mysterious steam tunnels everyone talks about and explore them (can’t give you more info than that because, ya know, they’re mysterious)
- Climb the roof of MemChu without dying (JK, maybe don’t do that)
- Enroll in (CS) 106A (sorry, I’ve been indoctrinated)
Drawbacks
On a serious note, Stanford has been aggressively revamping their alcohol policy in the past few years. Since this was seemingly catalyzed by the Brock Turner incident, which was obviously a tragedy, I genuinely respect their concern. But in my opinion, the new, stricter policy has encouraged more covert drinking. And instead of worrying about the safety of their members, s’rats and frats now worry about losing their charters. So, they are less apt to get people help should it be deemed medically necessary. On the one hand, almost every frat or sorority has been on probation in the past few years. On the other hand, they’re often put on probation for what I think are unfair reasons. For example, one sorority was just placed on probation after five of its members were drugged last winter because it needs to take “collective responsibility” for underage drinking. Sounds a lot like victim-blaming, but ok.
Basically, parties are huge downers now. Frats are terrified to throw anything large because Stanford will take the tiniest mistake and run with it to hell.
*steps off soapbox*
On a slightly less serious note, another drawback is people’s obsession with talking about how “hard but rewarding it is to no longer know that they are always the smartest person in the room.” Everyone, PLEASE get over yourselves. We know everyone here is f*cking smart.
Why Stanford Is The Best School In The World
Besides the insane acceptance rate and despite all the complaining in this article, Stanford is genuinely my favorite place on earth. It’s filled with people who are going to change the world one day. The professors are awe-inspiring and often Noble or Pulitzer Prize winners (keeping it casual). The weather is beautiful basically 24/7. Sorry for getting a little saccharine there, but I really do f*cking love this place.
Images: Duncan Schaffer / Unsplash; Giphy (8)
It’s that time of year again: a new army of skanks 18-year-old betches are spreading their wings and heading to our nation’s best party schools universities. For the next four years, they will drink, sporadically attend class, and meet the man who they will affectionately remember as “the worst fucking person I’ve ever met in my life,” and they’ll do it all while living in a tiny cinder block box commonly referred to as a dorm room. Once you’ve killed made friends with your roommate, it is time to figure out your room’s aesthetic. Decorating a dorm room is one of the most stressful things about being in college. Some people will tell you it’s “the coursework,” but those people are narcs. Have fun in the library, narcs! For the rest of us, college is 90% social, 10% academics (with 5% of that 10% being staring at the hot guy in your bio lecture) so we’re here to tell you what kind of message your decorating style is sending. You know, in case you ever actually get said hot guy in your bio lecture’s attention and end up fucking studying together. Pay attention, because you don’t want to be the weird girl on your floor.
The Free People Groupie
If you have a dreamcatcher hanging anywhere in the room, you’re probably try a little too hard to convince people that you’re chill. That doesn’t mean you’re not chill, it just means you need to shut up sometimes. You’re the girl who has a tapestry from Urban Outfitters hanging on the wall and a couple of deliberately placed bongs elephant statues and you can’t shut up about how you’re going to backpack around Asia after graduation. You’ll start smoking a lot of weed and your floor will be covered in dirty clothes by October. At your 10 year reunion, you’ll discover your “weed dealer” was selling you stems the whole time which is so crazy because you’re sure you were high.
The Classy Minimalist
You are dorm goals. How are you 19 but your half of the room somehow looks like a literal West Elm catalog? Where did you get those succulents? You have an aesthetic that most can only aspire to, and you’re probably an architecture major. Is that a gallery wall? Where the fuck did you get so many frames? You’ll get a bid from the top sorority despite the fact that you didn’t even sign up for rush and will disappoint everyone by going into charity work instead of becoming the social media stylist we all knew you could be.
The Poster Whore
Posters are a cheap and easy way to add some personal flair and immediately tell people way too much about yourself. We like Justin Bieber as much as the next girl, but not everyone needs to know that the second you invite them over. You’re the type of freshman who will make out with a guy on the dance floor of a frat basement during the first week of school and spend the rest of your four years upset that he never texted you. And no, Marilyn Monroe did not say that, that Polonius guy did.
The Monogram Addict
As a general rule of thumb, your room should not have any Lilly Pulitzer that you didn’t receive as a gift. The Monogram Addict tells everyone that her laundry hamper is monogrammed so no one would steal it, but we know you’re really just bougie like that. Your life won’t start for real until you’re in a sorority and then you’ll have a whole new set of letters to plaster all over everything. Next Step: Bully some poor frat bro into giving you an MRS degree. You wear pearls and pink lipstick non-ironically. You’ve probably only tried weed once, and it made your stomach hurt. Welcome to college, girlie!
The Bare Wall Girl
You’re either a serial killer or you’re that girl who literally didn’t care enough to put one decoration on the walls. Tbh we identify with this. Looking back on it, why did we care so much about putting shit on the walls when we were usually blackout by the time we got back to our room anyway?
The Homesick Decorator
Your only decorations are three million photos from home and a fugly frame that all your high school field hockey teammates signed. Your group text from your high school friends is the most important thing in your life, and you probably have a boyfriend who’s in school back home. Tbh nobody will even know who you are since you spend most of your time in your room Skyping people from your hometown. Good luck, we’ll miss you when you transfer!
The Classic Betch
Obviously the best kind of style. Your room is cute and decorated without looking like you spent nine hours at Bed Bath & Beyond. You have candles even though they’re against the rules because you’re about that life. Do we spot a Shop Betches pillowcase? Good girl. You can sit with us.
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