The prefrosh experience can be exhausting. Maybe you’re deciding between a number of schools and are going crazy trying to picture yourself at five different places at once, or maybe you got in during Early Decision and have been thinking about Wesleyan for so long that you just want to be a student already. You might feel a little out of place, and you might go above and beyond to try to fit in. Whatever the case, worry no longer: The Argus can help you avoid the most common mistakes we all made as prefrosh.

1. Don’t refer to yourself as anything but a prefrosh. We don’t call you prospective students or prospies or anything else. You are a prefrosh. There are a lot of prefrosh on campus right now, and Wesleyan students get aggressively excited about prefrosh, so don’t be afraid to flaunt it. You may have the idea in your head that being a prefrosh is somewhat uncool, but that is definitely not the case. We love you, and we want to answer all of your questions about which freshman dorm is the best (it’s Clark Hall, in case you were wondering, though I am definitely biased). Also, let’s be honest, you aren’t fooling anyone when you say you’re a current student…was that a voice crack I just heard?

2. Don’t assume WesAdmits or WesFest are the only ways to make friends. You are going to have a great three days at WesFest, and you will probably make some friendly acquaintances, and maybe you’ll meet your future roommate and your future best friend, but odds are that the people with whom you spend WesFest will not define your four years at this institution. The same applies to WesAdmits. The Internet is scary, and some people are really great at the whole making-friends-on-Facebook thing, but be wary: people are not always what they seem online. For example, when I was a prefrosh, my profile picture was of me in a play in which I dyed my hair hot pink and ran after people with a golf club. My current roommate saw this and assumed I was going to come after her with a golf club, but now we are best friends. Don’t believe everything you see on WesAdmits.

3. Don’t tell everyone you are planning on going to Brown. Or any other school besides Wesleyan, for that matter. You are at Wesleyan this weekend (the weekend starts on Wednesday—welcome to college), so be here and try to enjoy yourself. Maybe you’ll end up hating it here and you’ll go to Brown instead, but for now, even if you’re undecided, imagine loving it here and wanting to go here. You might just discover that you actually do.

4. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. This is a safe campus, but remember that you don’t know that many people here. As much as your host wants to stay up all night waiting to let you back into hir room, ze probably has class on Thursday and would like to go to bed before 5 a.m. Try to make smart decisions. If you’ve never had a sip of alcohol, this is probably not the best time to test your limits. Make sure that if you are going to go out without your host, you know how to get back to hir room. Wandering around alone is probably not the best idea. And don’t go too crazy at brunch: speaking from personal experience, it is possible to spontaneously combust from eating too much delicious breakfast food.

5. Don’t use Wes lingo incorrectly. The student center and dining hall is called Usdan (Yous-dan). The library in Exley (the science building) is called SciLi. That big hill in the middle of campus is called Foss. No one calls those dorms Butterfields; they are called the Butts, and the grassy area in the middle of them is called the Butthole. That group of big cement blocks by admissions is the CFA (short for Center for the Arts). The gym is called Freeman, and you should check it out, because it is beautiful. Public Safety is called PSafe. WesWings is the name of a delicious restaurant known for its wings, but you can’t use meal vouchers there, so bring cash or a really nice host. And don’t make the mistake of thinking WestCo Café serves coffee and pastries. It doesn’t.

6. Don’t be too cool for school. There are so many amazing events going on this week. There are tours and student panels and cool speakers and ice cream socials. These are all great ways to meet fellow prefrosh and current students and, most of all, to have fun. Just because that blasé hipster kid told you he’d rather sit on Foss Hill and revel in his own awesomeness than go to the all-campus barbecue and club fair doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go. You only get one WesFest (as a prefrosh). This will be the only WesFest where you are totally allowed—if not expected —to be unabashedly enthusiastic about everything. Being excited is really fun. So be excited.