To all incoming freshmen, I hereby do extend my hand and warmly welcome you to Loyola!
This gesture will no doubt cause confusion among veteran Maroon readers, as most of my previous columns have made me somewhat of a notorious complainer; but I assure all freshmen that my intentions are pure, and I promise all others that my next column will be appropriately inflammatory. With that said, I will now offer freshmen a crash course on how to survive life at Loyola.
The most effective way to do this is to break Loyola’s on-campus life down into its basic essential components: meal plans, campus police and smoker’s benches.
The good news is that as a freshman, your compulsory meal plan will not allow you to starve. The lukewarm news is that you may need to do some online tweaking to your meal plan to reflect your needs.
The easy way to decide which meal plan is best for you is to ask yourself, “If I were a caveman, would I be a hunter or a gatherer?” If you would have been a hunter, chances are that a meal plan with a lot of Orleans Room meals is your best bet. You would be victorious in the cutthroat atmosphere of Catfish Fridays, and your killer senses would enable you to determine by instinct when the O.R. is sparsely populated and thus easy prey.
A gatherer, on the other hand, would probably be better off with the 12 meals-per-week deal because of the $660 Wolfbucks that come with the package. Gatherers are a peaceful bunch with high moral standards and low thresholds for violence, so the ability to just buy food whenever it is needed—and not on the O.R. timeframe—allows for a more flexible schedule in the long run.
I wouldn’t bother with block meals until next semester, after you’ve had a little experience with Loyola’s dining options.
I will start off the second section by advising all freshmen to become aware of on-campus rules, their rights as students and on-campus judiciary processes. If you’re a troublemaker, find a guy who is studying law around here and put him on retainer (another great reason to have extra Wolfbucks).
However, the by-far most important tidbit I can pass on in this column is to get to know your campus police. If you see one standing around or taking a break, make small talk. Learn their names. Bum them a cigarette. Do these things because on the one hand, all of them are great people with awesome stories and a fair amount of free time. On the other, these are the people you will initially answer to in the event of a legal discrepancy. And they carry guns. No-brainer.
Lastly, smoker’s benches are the most prominent on campus social epicenters of Loyola. Hang around smoker’s benches and you will make friends, easy as that. I suppose that I can’t really advise anyone to start smoking; but whether you smoke or not, the benches are where you can find out about parties, homework, shows and just about anything else that interests the typical college student in New Orleans. Additionally, that’s where you’ll find some of the more talkative campus police.
With that all said, have a great first year! Also, don’t stand under the trees. There are some pretty sick caterpillars around here.
Chad Carlile can be reached at
