{shortcode-a413262c5fd6469639ddc6e3e6a38e84da3ec344}

Freshman, beware! One of the most important days of your freshman lives is coming up– Housing Day. Even though some of you will get lucky in terms of distance to the Yard, know that the tense minutes before your housing assignment arrives will be more agonizing than having to eat swai every week in the Berg. We’ve got some ways for you to anticipate that knock on the door and distract yourselves from your final fate.

1. Watch every Housing Day video in existence multiple times. Work on the pset you told yourself you were going to start last night. Do anything to block out the sounds of upperclassmen storming the Yard.

2. Have a box of Kleenex on every flat surface of the room. Will you and your blockmates cry tears of joy or tears of utter despair? You’ll never know, so it's better to be prepared rather than crying into the chest of the person handing you your housing letter.

3. Now it is time to get down to what really matters— food. Regardless of whether or not you get into your dream house or the one of your nightmares, you and your blockmates want to be able to celebrate or drown your sorrows in food. So go ahead, get hundreds of munchkins from Dunkin Donuts, tons of coffee from Au Bon Pain, all the chips at CVS. Freshman fifteen in one go?

4. Group hug all your blockmates and create a last minute prayer circle to the Housing Gods. 

5. Prepare your reactions ahead of time for when you think you hear the chants of a house coming close to your door. Just don’t be the person who cries or slams the door on the upperclassmen who arrive.

Regardless of which House you’re stuck with, it’s only three years. And you can always transfer out (though the chances you get through are slim). Like we all say on Housing Day, may the odds be ever in your favor.