Orientation week will be a whirlwind, but the next four years will go by faster than you can say, "Oh my, there's an elephant on the railroad tracks!" There are plenty of ways to make the best of your time on the Hill, and here are a few to keep in mind before you find yourself in a cap and gown.
Get together with your club, hall or even just a group of friends, and paint the cannon. Staying up all night to make your mark and guard your masterpiece is a great bonding experience, not to mention an easy way to spruce up that plain white tee with some arsty paint splatters.
Grab the cutie down the hall for a romantic date on the Tisch Library roof. There's mood lighting, secluded, leafy corners and a view of Boston that you can brag about to your friends at Harvard. Ignore the cigarette butts and the weird noises coming from behind that other tree: It's all part of the ambiance.
Join Tufts' Third Day Gospel Choir for a semester — or at least go to one of the concerts. The class is a relaxing and soulful way to spend a Friday afternoon, or if you don't take the class, just try to stay seated while you're listening to over 200 of your classmates sing their hearts out.
If singing isn't how you get your musical jollies, try out the pianos in the practice rooms in Granoff Music Center. Just because you can't fit a baby grand in your dorm room doesn't mean you can't have a quiet place to run through that Mozart sonata or have a friend teach you your do-re-mi's.
Holi, the Hindi festival of color, rolls around every February or March. People around the world celebrate this ancient tradition by throwing colored powder and water on each other. Tufts being a hotbed of cultural diversity, Jumbos join in the festivities every year, and so can you. Make a huge mess on the Res Quad and get covered in flattering pinks and greens. It's a win-win.
Order Pizza Days at 3 a.m. and regret it the next morning. Don't forget to ask about the free socks.
Stay for late night study at Tisch Library. Nothing says college like stumbling home in the wee hours after finishing a 10-page paper and hearing the sweet sound of pre-dawn birdsong before collapsing into bed.
Write an op-ed for the Daily. Say what you want about shameless self-promotion, but the best way to let your "active citizen" colors shine is to voice your views on the latest bias incident in the most widely-read publication on campus.
Take a professor out to coffee. It's free if you go somewhere on campus!
Run NQR. Oh wait...
