WRITING an advice column almost never comes easily. Avoiding clichés can become an impossible task.
COMING to the University as a law student, my first experience with the University was being racially profiled.
THE UNIVERSITY has a wide variety of interesting and, to be honest, often confusing or seemingly random traditions and terms.
DESIGNING your dream schedule is easy. The University offers hundreds of challenging, fascinating courses on all of the subjects you could ever want to study.
FREE FOOD. Many students equate these two words with class councils. While we take pride in competing with Dining Services for the stomachs of University students, the mission of class councils does not actually revolve around pizza and barbecue.
ALTHOUGH Thomas Jefferson referred to himself as "the Father of the University of Virginia," his only official title was first rector of the Board of Visitors.
THE HONOR system at the University of Virginia is more than just a piece of University history. Founded in 1842, the system was created as a means for students to enforce a set of standards by which the community committed to abide.
LIVING on-Grounds in one of the University's many residential facilities is an exciting way for students to immerse themselves in the University community, to meet new people and to continue learning beyond the doors of New Cabell, Small or Campbell Hall.
WHEN SETTLING in to your new home at the University of Virginia, much of what surrounds you will likely be overwhelming.
MANY OF you who have returned from weekend-long Summer Orientations probably learned the basics of how to navigate from Old Dorms to Alderman and register for classes.
THIRTY-FOUR years ago next month, my parents and I packed the family station wagon (minivans hadn't been invented yet) and headed down I-95 to college.
On the next pages you are going to be bombarded with advice and wisdom from some of the best and brightest at this University.
Recent high school graduates often find themselves bathing in America's great septic tank of advice, but rarely is someone there to answer the truly important questions about starting college -- like "how is all of this getting into the car?" There are two solutions to this problem: either you bring less stuff or more cars.
DURING 4 am study sessions, when words in the textbook begin to melt into the page and the only sound penetrating the silence of the library are panicked keyboard strikes and the snores coming from the adjacent study station, no student could be blamed for wanting an extra boost of energy.
AS AN incoming first-year student, you are being inundated with a tremendous amount of information intended to help you to become acclimated to the special community you are about to join.
THE BEST advice in college is not to take advice. Family, friends, professors and advisors will all have their own opinions on your studies, majors, courses and extracurricular life.
THERE are hundreds of contracted independent organizations (CIOs), or student-run clubs, at the University.
I REMEMBER very distinctly a conversation I had back in Pittsburgh near the close of my senior year of high school with a teacher and fellow liberal.
YOU WILL not get your first choice or your second choice class to take Tuesday/Thursday at ten. To be honest, you probably won't get your third or fourth either. So dig in. Your advisor will not teach in the department in which you plan to major.
LIFE AS a graduate student is not all beer and skittles. Very few people come to graduate school with this notion, and they are soon disabused of their misconceptions.
