There is a terrible tradition associated with final columns in which writers feel a 750-word shock-and-awe campaign of self righteous blathering about their accumulated Wisdom of the Pines is appreciated by readers. I wish I could tell you I'm not copping out and doing just that, but regular readers know how I feel about tradition.
Plus, at this point it's probably just my friends and family reading. If you aren't a friend, then odds are that after years of ignoring my encouragements, warnings, arguments (cogent or otherwise) and franco-phobic rants you didn't read past the byline.
So, here it is. An incomplete list of what I've learned—good and bad—either through personal experience or from the fate of friends during my time at Bowdoin.
I suck at calculus, scotch is an acquirable taste, Pabst Blue Ribbon gives bad hangovers, Moulton is better than Thorne for dining atmosphere, aviator glasses do make you cooler, eventually I'll have to buy a cell phone, striking out at IM softball is absurdly lame, bowling a strike is awesome, Inter-Library Loan doesn't charge for overdue fines although they may threaten to, and it's important to always keep your sense of humor.
Kegs are not allowed in freshman dorms. Have all the cases you want, but kegs are forbidden. Additionally, all list emails (i.e. Winthrop_dorm@bowdoin.edu) get monitored and every use of your ID card is recorded. I learned of Big Brother the hard way freshman year. My roommates and I had thrown a great kegger in Winthrop and gotten away with it completely until the party was mentioned in a dorm-wide email the next day. Res Life and Security were not as pleased with the success of our party as we were.
Using the term "Bowdoin Bubble" makes you sound like an idiot, so don't do it. First of all, by the end of freshmen orientation alone, it is so monstrously clichéd that it single handedly stunts many students' ability to think and form rational thoughts for months and sometimes years. Secondly, it is a term used disparagingly by individuals deriding the supposed disconnect between Bowdoin and reality but who aren't all that fond of reality to begin with. Think the "Bowdoin Bubble" is stressful and politically apathetic? Just wait until you graduate.
Honors projects aren't too difficult if you use your time judiciously and work on a regular schedule throughout the year. But you won't. You'll do all the work over three absurdly over-stimulated weeks sprinkled throughout the second semester right before various deadlines.
Bowdoin, although it has its faults, is a fundamentally good place—perhaps one of the best. Not just in comparison to other schools, and not just in terms of the academics, but in terms of the opportunities it presents. Want to hike a mountain? We've got those and rivers and oceans as well. Want to study something abstract? Our professors LOVE abstract stuff. 73 percent of them wrote their dissertation in Abstract Studies. Want to subject others to the burden of your opinion? Great! Here are six different ways to make them suffer.
The ability of an individual to take a joke varies inversely to their degree of involvement in resource centers, their penchant for protesting, and the likelihood that all their friends already agree with them.
Some things are worth fighting for, but rarely do these things present themselves to you, and almost never do they occur after 1 a.m. on a Friday night. Pacifism may be for chumps, but knowing the difference between what's worth it and what isn't cannot be overstated.
Citing God is not argument enough in a political debate. Ignoring the influence and relevance of religion is equally fatal.
When trying to hit on some cute Hungarian women you met at a run- down casino in Budapest with only an English to German dictionary at your disposal, choose an easier story than that you and your buddies are venture capitalists scouring Eastern Europe for good investments. Simplicity is a good idea any time there is a communication hurdle, but it is doubly true while attempting to translate from English to German to Hungarian after a few drinks, and even more important when the country you are visiting used to be part of the Soviet bloc. "Venture capitalist" translates roughly as "KGB" to these people.
Everyone gets called bad names sometimes. Perhaps it's unfortunate but it's going to happen. Idiot, asshole, fag, homophobe, jock, bitch, racist, fascist, commie, whatever. While the mantra of "sticks and stones may break my bones..." was lost years ago with the rise of the politically correct bien pensants, eager to control other's thoughts by restricting the legitimacy of certain words, Eleanor Roosevelt had it right: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
Along those lines, I will end with the delightfully obdurate words of George Bernard Shaw; "The longer I live, the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I've so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time."