Everything you’ll experience during Syllabus Week at CU

Whether it’s the boring welcome classes or ragers every night, there’s a little something for everyone when it comes to the lovely syllabus week.

Did I forget to set my alarm?

It’s that time again! The one where we go to bed at a sort of decent hour in our minds and we regretfully pull out our phones and open the stupid alarm app. For those of us with great schedules and easy classes, we smile and put in 9 or 10. For those of us with hard classes that we could only get into the 8am slot, we frustratingly put in 6:30 orrrr maybe 7:45 if you really want to cut it close. Moral of the story, the alarm has to be set… And the regime must heartbreakingly start all over again. Or maybe we should all just “forget.” It’s just syllabus week right?

Walking across the snowy campus

In the Boulder winter, it’s really beautiful to take in all of the snow covered campus… from INSIDE. However, classes are starting and so there’s really no other choice. Time to get back to shitty on-the-go morning coffee and a whole lot of layers that make us look like identical state puff marshmallow men darting from one warm building to the next. Gotta love those unavoidable frigid Colorado winter days. Unless of course, we decide, screw it, and just go skiing instead.

Finding parking

If I were to offer the most effective piece of advice to a college student, it would be live near campus because parking is not exactly easy and definitely not cheap. Not to mention if you go and buy a parking pass, that’s a huge wad of cash out of the bank account. Plus, if you really truly want a good spot you might as well get to class at the break of dawn. Want to sleep in? Might as well walk for an hour to get to school because it might be the equivalent time you wait to actually find a parking spot and get to class anyways.

The welcome back spiel that takes the whole class, but you still go

You know the drill – you show up because you don’t want to miss anything important, but the teacher just rambles about themselves and tells you the words you most look forward to… “read the syllabus online yourselves.” You sit in class half asleep wishing you were anywhere else, probably still in your bed, because you’re not learning anything at all. But then, there are those teachers go on and on until the very last minute of class and tell you the worst phrase in syllabus history… “check online, you have homework due at the end of the week.” We’ve learned nothing and yet somehow there’s already homework so nicely waiting for us out there in cyber space. Great.

Waiting in line to buy all your books at the bookstore for hours

As if we don’t already feel so productive with our time in class, now it’s time to yet again wait in the ridiculous line that is the CU bookstore. Did we order books online ahead of time? Of course not. Most of us wait to see what books our teachers want us to get, which is all well and good until we spend all that extra time in line for the same two books we could’ve ordered over break. But no, we’ll never learn

The dream of “I can do it this semester” brought back to life

You finally get all your books and have all your due dates and schedules written nicely in a planer. Maybe everything in your room is organized and your desk has all the perfect utensils and rulers and notebooks. Our lives are together, we are prepared – it’s a new semester and teachers aren’t grumpy, they are refreshed and positive. This is called a bubble. The bubble of syllabus week, where everything is easy and everyone is nice and we start to think, I am gonna kill it this semester! I got this! Yup… I hope you do! Somehow though, that bubble always pops and once it does, there really is no way to patch it up. Duck tape maybe?

It’s the weekend every day

To us college students Syllabus Week basically translates to, “we are doing nothing in classes, therefore we can get trashed every day of the week.” And guess what? Everybody does it! The Hill the week of Syllabus Week is basically a nonstop party. There are parties in frats, annexes, houses, dorm rooms and in the yards of places! It’s not hard to walk around at any time at night and find somewhere to get wrecked with basically every other CU Boulder student. Even in the day there are things happening for those of us not horribly hungover. There’s no hanging out in the shallow end of the pool and easing your way back into the party life that is the college atmosphere. Once your back at the pool, everyone dives in the deep end and you either sink or swim.

All our new holiday cash going towards that drunk food we missed so much

Along with all the partying every day all day and night comes the hearty appetite that comes with it and boy did we all miss the tons and tons of food the Hill and Pearl Street offer us. Boss lady and Cosmos are always the late night hit up and when you’re going out that much, obviously we all need some food to soak up the alcohol.  Say goodbye to all that Christmas money. At least the food is worth every penny you spend. Well as long as we don’t see it all again just hours after we eat it… which is unfortunately and grossly, extremely likely.

 Walks of shame every morning on the Hill

When it really comes down to it, we take one look at the half dead zombies in class, ragers all night and day, and food comas that never quit and we can’t help but smile. We’re all home! You see a late morning walker in the clothes they were clearly wearing the night before, not unlike yourself, and you just laugh and wave because we’re all in the same boat. Syllabus week might be over too fast, but we’re in college! It’s a new semester! The fun is just beginning.