Dear UCSD Newbie:

Congratulations on making it to UC San Diego. Take one last longing look at Cal and UCLA (if you even care to) and then clear them out of your mind. Four years here are too few to nurture regrets. And if you do, you’ll miss the hidden splendor of this paradise of learning. Yes, paradise of learning. Aren’t you getting shivers down your spine already?

Here are some handy thoughts that may be somewhat useful for your journey ahead. If anything, college is what you make of it. Take it from an old senior geezer like me.

First, leave your car at home because, a) the parking permit will cost you a small fortune, b) as a freshman, there is little need to have a car and mostly because, c) there are desperate upperclassmen commuters out there and you do not want to get in their way. Parking spots go faster than hotcakes. When you hit our ripe old age, you’ll understand.

Remember the crunch of SATs, APs, and seven-hour school days? Put it all behind you. From here on out, your 4.1 GPA and 1300 score will be relegated to the back of an admissions archive. You are starting afresh with peers of the same achievement level as you. Use your blank slate with wisdom — nobody will be checking your homework, and most professors don’t care if you come to class or not. If you want to succeed, it will be on your initiative and yours alone.

The temptation to ditch class will be imminent, even though there’s only about 12 hours of it a week. Most of you will skip class one way or another. I’d advise grabbing a venti Frappuccino from Earl’s Place and dragging yourself to Chem 6A anyway. An important thing to keep in mind here is that school is no longer free, like it has been all your life. Your parents are paying thousands of dollars for you to be here.

And if you don’t care about that, just remember that when finals week rolls around, there are no bonus homework points to make up for lack of preparation. Most finals average around 50 percent or more of your grade. That pretty much has “make-or-break” written all over it.

With professors, get over the intimidation factor. Visit their office hours if you can, because when graduate or professional school application time rolls around, you’ll be hurtin’ for a professor buddy. Plus, they probably will teach you more outside of the classroom than in it if you get to know them.

College is all about the free time. Even with the most difficult majors, there will still be time to blow. More than ever, it is time to prove that “youth is wasted on the young” is a fallacy. Put your energy to good use. As you stroll down Library Walk these next couple weeks, you will be inundated with a flurry of fliers. Over 300 student organizations — religious-, ethnic-, sports-related — will fight for your attention. It’s good to dabble in a couple and then focus on one or a few, including (warning: shameless plug ahead) writing for the Guardian! Explore your interests and spend time making lots of friends — all in one! Getting involved, as cliché as it sounds, is one of the best ways to enjoy your time at UCSD. For all the talk of the boring campus climate and lack of a football team to amp up the atmosphere, you will find (legal and safe) fun if you go looking for it.

You are going to groan when you encounter general education classes. Approach Humanities or Making of the Modern World with an open mind. Look at GEs as a buffet of goodies in which to indulge, and not as brussel sprouts to be shoved down your throat. Chances are most of you will switch majors, so choose GE classes wisely — they might just awaken your curiosity. Buy and read the CAPE (Course and Professor Evaluations) so you know the real dish about your classes — it’s like Us Weekly, but with useful class information instead of celeb trash. Along the same lines, most of you don’t really know what to do with your life right now. And at the end of your four years, many of you still won’t know. That’s OK. Find what you like, and remember that UCSD is not a technical school. It is meant to imbue you with knowledge of and for the world, and will not necessarily offer a practical approach to making easy money. Don’t be discouraged or scared; you will have eventual career prospects even if you aren’t a super motivated pre-med student ready to tackle ophthalmology right out of undergrad.

Life has a way of ironing itself out, so don’t stress too much about the future. Instead, invest your time in people. Sign off AIM once in a while and walk over to have a real conversation. You’ll meet lifelong friends here, and maybe even your spouse.

Visit the cliffs across from John Muir College. Take a long hard look at the Pacific and be thankful that you’re at UCSD. You may be just one newbie in a sea of 300 classmates in Center 101 — and one out of almost 4,000 freshmen — but your future is as limitless as that ocean and as beautiful as that fatty mansion by the cliffs. At the end of your four years, hopefully it will be apparent that even as one of 26,000 students, you’ve become one of a kind.