Welcome, Class of 2011! You are at Dartmouth now, where you will have many opportunities to become immersed in so many different cultural, academic, and athletic activities. Here you will get all the tools you will need to become an asshat I-banker a citizen of the world! There are so many new things you can try like Philosophy People Talking Club, or snorkeling, or Diversity! When I first matriculated, I admit I was worried-- what would happen to me if I failed to take advantage of all these opportunities? But then I was like, "Wait, I just spent four years going to class and doing extracurriculars--and they're trying to get me to do all that stuff for four more years?!" It just didn't make sense: my parents weren't paying two million or whatever dollars a year for me to go and do all the same boring stuff I could do for free in high school, were they?

So I'm here to share some advice that the people who tell you stuff don't tell you: it's really hard to rise to the top at Dartmouth just because you were smarter or richer than all your high school friends. But guess what? There's another top you can rise to--at the bottom. Now you may be thinking, like, "the romanticized 'lazy drug addict' is just a media image," but it isn't--and it's a life to which you too can aspire. I may appear to be some kind of leisure god because I spend my days making YouTube videos that sync Barney clips with rap songs, but I put on my pants just like everyone else--one leg at a time at 5 p.m. when I'm all out of Goldfish and Nutella and can't put off lunch any longer.

Start with classes. You've probably heard the old bromide that 90% of your educationhappens outside the classroom--but why stop at 90%? Do you really need to go to Microeconomics to learn how to calculate a 15% tip (just buy one of those neat calculator- watches!)? Do you need to go to history to learn about the legendary 1991 season of the Washington Redskins, or Poetry to figure out the lyrics to that new Nickelback song that actually isn't that bad? They say if you don't go to class, your life in college will somehow be affected negatively, but I haven't been to class since freshman fall and you don't see me getting AIDS or anything.

All those Dartmouth brochures with the smiling people in the science lab were right about one thing, though, and that is that in college, you should pursue whatever you are passionate about. I guess you could be passionate about warming the bench for the Frisbee team, or writing for a publication, or succeeding, but that doesn't really make sense to me. I would think that what you'd really be passionate about at this point would be shedding your loser high school identity. In order to do that, you'll want to take up some less-publicized Dartmouth activities, namely, spitting. If you spit a lot, people will think you're either perpetually disgusted by this artificial, conformist milieu we inhabit or that you're packing a lip of smokeless tobacco, and they'll respect you for that.

You see, it's only your deans, your loved ones, modern American society at large, and God who want you to think that drinking all afternoon is not as productive and worthwhile an activity as studying, panel-discussing or student-governing. This sort of racist attitude, however, is fortunately not shared by grad schools and employers. Just remember, if you can put it on your résumé, that's all that matters. A list of girls you almost made out with? That counts. Your frat? That counts double because employers will probably think it's basically the same thing as Phi Beta Kappa, which is a really good frat. So go forth now, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed '11s! Go forth and do nothing.