Welcome to UCSD, freshmen! After four years of arduous study, despotic parents and far too many rules, are you ready to party like there’s no tomorrow? Dying to join a beer-guzzling frat straight out of “”Animal House?”” Been dreaming of a sunny San Diego college where the beer flows like a mountain stream and the weed grows like, well, weeds? Are you ready for a school where you can drink and party 24-7 with no repercussions?
Well then, you should’ve gone to San Diego State.
This is UCSD, and as you’ll soon find out, your local resident dean really wasn’t kidding: The school will enforce the legal drinking age of 21. Who knew?
Your resident advisor will constantly be on the lookout for parties, and the numerous resident security officers will patrol the campus and scour your suites for alcohol. If caught, you get to book an appointment with your dean, who will in turn reserve a spot for you in an alcohol awareness class.
And frat parties? I hope you have a buddy with a car and low expectations. Unless you want to hitch a ride down to Tijuana every weekend, you’d better learn how to party on campus — and get away with it.
As tyrannical as the administration is, not only can you enjoy a blissfully impaired partying experience, but you won’t get caught in the process. The only resource more useful to you than this article is EDNA, so remember everything you read here, and you’ll learn the easy way.
It’s simple: If you don’t want to get caught, don’t get rowdy. The first tip-off to RAs and RSOs is noise. Even if you don’t think you’re being loud, your noise is still audible from the ground and its origin is easy to trace. You should keep windows and doors shut, and stay off the balcony. It might get a little hot, but it’s better than the RSOs breathing down your neck. We all know how loud drunks can be, so use your best judgment and keep them under wraps. Then again, you’re going to be drunk too, so what’s your best judgment worth, anyway?
Don’t rely too much on the lock on your suite door. RSOs and RAs have keys and no qualms about barging in. There will always be some sober people watching out for everyone, so make sure they’re also watching the door. If you’re really on the ball, you’ll have somebody outside to greet the RSOs and RAs as they come to break it up. You’ll at least have a little more warning, and valuable time to hide your alcohol.
Remember, to keep the bar in one of the rooms, preferably the one farthest from the suite door. Once there’s trouble, you shut the door, hit the lights, and the inhabitants are suddenly “”out of town.”” If it’s too late to slam the door, make sure there’s a place to hide all the alcohol. Even if the people in the suite are busted, at the very least, you won’t have to pour all that alcohol down the sink. After all, a good beer is a terrible thing to waste.
Along those lines, make sure everyone drinks from plastic cups. They’re pretty blatant, but better that than being caught with a beer bottle in your hand. If there’s any time to spare, you can shove the cups into the trash bag you diligently hid in the little space between the wall and the couch.
If you get pinched and are lucky enough to be on the first floor, then you have one other option: Run! I am not suggesting that you should hop a balcony and run from authorities, but odds are that you’d get away. Of course, if you accidentally sprain your ankle in the process, then at least you won’t worry about getting caught any more.
You also have to remember that time is a factor. From 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, the RAs will visit every suite, looking for parties. This is the trickiest part, since you know a visit is inevitable. If you’re a smart partier, though, it’s also the easiest. Hopefully, your RA will visit you nice and early, before your guests even arrive. Otherwise, you need to find a way to keep tabs on them. Once you know an RA is on his way up, make sure all your guests are the upstanding young citizens they’re expected to be. You still have to watch for RSOs, but you don’t have to worry as much after 3 a.m., once they throw their own coffee and doughnut party over at Earl’s Place.
If worst comes to worst, you’ll get caught. They’ll look at you and ask, “”Who here has been drinking?”” Look them in the eye and honestly tell them, “”It wasn’t me!”” Shrugging shoulders and confused facial expressions complement this line well.
Unfortunately, those guys tend to be smarter than we like to think they are, so this might not work. Your best bet may then be just to shut up and cut your losses.
Go chill with the resident advisor, sleep through your alcohol awareness class and write your resident dean a cute paper about what you pretended to learn in that class, and everything will be all but forgotten. Generally, three write-ups is when you’re really in trouble. Then again, I have known guys who claim to have been written up as many as seven times and still live on campus.
Hopefully, this will help you make the best of your early experiences here at UC San Quen … err, San Diego. It took me all of last year to figure most of that out, so maybe you won’t get caught as often as I did.
Remember: If an RSO asks if you want to go to detox, the answer is a definite “”no.””
