Hey, MOVErs!

Give yourselves a round of applause –– you survived not only syllabus week shenanigans, but, for many of you, your first week of college.

Now that you’ve (hopefully) figured out where all your classes are, identified which dining hall is the best (it’s Plaza — trust me), learned that life is expensive and laundry is hard and made tons of new friends, it’s time for the school year to begin in earnest.

Here are a few tips for making your first (or second, third, fourth, fifth…) year awesome:

**1.** Like I said, it’s no longer syllabus week. You can’t go out every night instead of studying and expect to do well. I recommend hitting up Mizzou’s hottest on-campus hangout: Club Ellis. It’s packed wall-to-wall with books and filled with people who can help you conduct research, locate books you need and wrangle the second-floor printers into submission. Students have been known to go hard at El Lib till the wee hours of the morning.

**2.** Explore your surroundings. Columbia is such an awesome city. It’s this little quirky-indie-hipster-artsy hub, smack-dab in the middle of Middle America. When you have some free time, wander downtown. Go window shopping. Support a local business by buying locally grown produce or art from a local artist. Find a new favorite downtown haunt. Take a few hours just to stroll around and pretend you’re in your own Wes Anderson film.

**3.** There are a ton of nice, attractive, funny people on campus. You’ll probably become interested in some of them. (After all, you’re going to need someone with whom to go to all those nights at Club Ellis). But a piece of advice: don’t go out with people on your floor (or on the floor above you, or in your student orgs…). If you choose to date, don’t let it end badly –– this campus is too damn small for making enemies and too darn Midwestern for impoliteness. There’s no such thing as secret crushes, and there’s no such thing as “never seeing so-and-so again.” People will know if you like someone –– we’ve got _how_ many journalists in this town? News travels fast –– and you will see people again, even if you don’t want to.

**4.** Last but most certainly not least, enjoy the heck out of your time here. You’re only here for a few years, and while some days it’ll feel like forever, I promise you: This is such a short portion of your life. Don’t waste it. Take advantage of this opportunity. There are thousands of people who would _kill_ to be in your shoes, studying at the University of Missouri.

But at the same time, don’t let yourself get burned out from hitting the books too hard. Take time to step back and enjoy it. Take way too many photos of you and your friends. Take your work seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously. Don’t be afraid to let your guard down and be a total goofball or a complete mess sometimes. You’re either in the middle of or just beginning one of the craziest, most challenging, most amazing, most thought-provoking times in your life. Don’t miss it sitting in front of a screen or hiding behind a book.

(Oh, and read MOVE. That’s the best piece of advice I can give you.)

Until next time, MOVErs.