Every thought you’ll have when you see a tour group on campus

‘Oh no, she just took a free drawstring bag’

It’s the time of year where prospective students are touring colleges and you can’t walk to class without getting stuck behind a slow moving herd of wide-eyed cattle. Campus tours are scheduled almost every day at NC State, and it’s obvious when you walk into the bookstore and all you see are moms loading up on their red and white gear.

This is what students who are already enrolled think about when we see high schoolers roaming through campus.

‘Why are you wearing NC State gear already?’

You can always spot tours from afar because it looks like a frenzy of red. They shouldn’t be wearing Wolfpack attire yet because they will probably change their mind three times before committing to actually go here.

‘Holy crap, they look so much younger than me’

I probably looked like a 12-year-old when I first toured here. Who am I kidding? I still look like I’m 12.

‘What are they carrying?’

I hope this group is smarter than the last and ditches their free draw-string bags before school starts.

‘They don’t have student debt yet’

These guys walk so light and free because they aren’t yet weighed down by student debt. Soon they will look stressed and sleep-deprived like the rest of us.

‘I hope they can’t see me’

I look horrible right now because I literally just woke up. I’m not representing us very well. Maybe if I don’t make eye contact they won’t notice me.

‘She looks like a girl who will fall for a cheesy pick-up line’

I wonder which of these girls will be the target of desperate upperclassmen who like to hit on the innocent freshmen. And the poor girls will be so flattered they’ll fall for cheesy pick-up-lines. “Your daddy must be a baker, ’cause you got a nice set of buns.”

‘This tour isn’t about you, parents’

Is a campus tour just an opportunity for parents to brag about their alma maters? Seriously, these people just want to live vicariously through their child. From the outside it’s like they never really left the college scene behind. Class of 1979, forever.

Although we may sometimes look miserable to visitors (because we waited until the last possible minute to start writing this paper), we really do love our university. We welcome new members to the Wolfpack with open arms. Don’t let our pained faces fool you.

Tour groups have the honor of witnessing what college students look like in their natural habitat, so take it all in because you’ll be in our shoes soon enough.

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