One thing you will learn about Northwestern upon arriving your first week is that everyone here loves a good icebreaker. Your Peer Advisers will make this quite clear to you upon arrival but if you have any interest in making new friends here, icebreakers are a great way to start. Try coming up with a few very obscure questions you could ask potential new friends that will challenge them – Northwestern students love to be challenged. Upperclassmen already know the drill so be sure to grill them with all of your icebreaker questions, too.
Icebreakers will also come in handy at parties. Freshmen boys: Icebreakers are a great way to talk to Freshmen girls (and upperclassmen if you’re feeling brave). Here are a few proven questions that have worked in the past: Continue reading →
Bonus observation: The lakefill looks like a man pooping on the library.
Nothing brings clarity to a Northwestern student quite like being home for the holidays with a refrigerator full of your parents finest beer. Here are the observations of one Wildcat on life on the outside.
1. Nobody will compliment you on how good you look ever again*
Maybe you’re like me and were in peak physical condition sophomore year of high school. Maybe you’re also like me and your body stopped changing for the better by the time Wildcat Welcome Week rolled around. Or maybe you’re like me and just not that good looking to begin with. Either way, you can kiss those “oh my god you look so great!”s and “wow, bro, you lift?”s and “hey, so the thing is, I never would have broken up with you outside of Six Flags Great America’s Raging Bull if you looked like that”s goodbye. Your physique has started what promises to be a decades-long decline, and all that you have to look forward to is people poking your love handles and observing how fat you’re getting. But hey, making donuts with your belly is pretty fun, right?
Three short years ago the class of 2014 shuffled at the pace of a dehydrated desert tortoise because everyone’s parents felt the need to take photos every five steps marched through the arch and commenced the drunk, sweaty adventure that was Wildcat Welcome 2010. In a few weeks, we’re really looking forward to sitting on our front porches, drinking beer that isn’t Busch Light, and watching you wander aimlessly as you try to find that awesome party near the corner of Maple and Simpson.
WESTCHESTER, NY–Hoping to fight increasing boredom and decreasing self worth, incoming freshman Eric Johannson attempted to hibernate for one month, planning to wake up in time for Wildcat Welcome Week.
“I heard the dark month–you know, that month after everyone else leaves for school while you’re still stuck at home–is totally killer,” said Johannson, a week before the beginning of his hibernation. “I mean, what are you supposed to do, hang out with your parents? Yeah, ooookay.”
I love you, but you’re bringing me down. Actually, I don’t, but you totally are. How can one love that which is unlovable unknown to him? I didn’t realize you guys were here yet. I even trolled your Facebook group all summer and STILL didn’t figure out that you would be arriving just abouuutt now. See, I live in this magical, far-off place called “off-campus.” You’ll visit this fantasyland someday. It’s the tits. Well, being off-campus, I failed to witness the warning signs of the invasion of the freshmen army (I’ve been trapped indoors gaming and boozing all day. YOLO). From my ivory tower that’s more like an ugly 70’s era building with a blue façade and crappy windows facing another ugly building, I failed to see the smoke rising above Evanston. I could not have known. Or perhaps I did, and wished to forget. It certainly would explain the day-drinking.
It was not until I journeyed into Evanston proper that I witnessed the extent of the devastation caused by YOU PEOPLE. I expected there to be pillaging and plundering, oh yes. After all, such is the nature of the annual sacking of this super pretentious and poorly designed city. But one can never truly be prepared for such a thing. It’s why I dropped out of Boy Scouts — their false promises of being prepared, and the diddling.
My trip to Chipotle and CVS opened my eyes to the chaos. Traffic on the way there seemed normal, at least, as normal as it can be when the roads are torn up and there are no lanes or sidewalks (seriously, who the fuck does that at the busiest time of the year, and for no apparent reason? Good job, Mayor Tisdahl.)
But within CVS I witnessed a maelstrom hitherto unforeseen. The lines for checkout reached all the way to the frozen pizzas (300% markup from Jewel prices! Convenient!) So many confused people, so many mothers asking, “Do you need this?” “Where are the condoms?” and “Who is Chet Haze?” All totally valid questions, all totally answerable, all totally annoying when all I’m trying to do is grab some Zyrtec and Mountain Dew. It was hell.
And at Chipotle, the worst crime yet. I had to WAIT for my food, for, like, a whole minute, at 2:45 IN THE GODDAMNED AFTERNOON (This is breakfast time for me.) How is there a line at such a time? Why didn’t you get lunch BEFORE you went to CVS?!?! You would’ve bought fewer $6 packages of cookies that way! Or you could’ve gone to TARGET!!! Or to a restaurant unique to Evanston!!! ALL OF OUR BARS ARE RESTAURANTS BY LAW!!!!!!!
I wearily departed downtown Evanston, my soul burdened by what I had seen. “Seriously, why did that one freshman girl buy bubble-gum flavored Trident? That shit tastes like ass.” I asked myself this question, and many others, on the long, treacherous, 30-second bike ride back to my apartment. I recognized my strife to be but the first experience of many to come, in which YOU, freshmen, would make my life slightly more miserable because SCAPEGOATING. Seriously, I can’t even imagine how f’d up campus looks right meow. It’s all the fault of Adam freshmen.
Calm the fuck down.
There is no denying your nature, freshmen. You will ask stupid questions in class. You will travel in large groups, fully knowing it is totally unnecessary and obnoxious. You will go to parties, and throw up in the corner, and then not tell anyone you threw up in the corner because oh God the embarrassment of throwing up in the corner. You will do all these things, and many more, and you will be sorry, but also, totally not sorry, because this is college and everyone before you made the same mistakes and who do you even tell when you throw up in the corner?
And we, dear freshmen, we will weep for you, we will curse you, we will roll our eyes at you and give you the wrong directions when you ask where Pancoe is. Because that is our nature. We, the upperclassmen, who are fundamentally no different than you except we pretend to know more and get away with it sometimes.
And yet, we cherish you, freshmen. You guys make us laugh. You give us stories. You fill us with hope that Northwestern will retain its 12th place ranking for yet another year. For that I thank you. For everything else, I curse you.
Go Cats,
The Commandant
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Prepare to develop a complex love-hate relationship with the color purple.
First of all, I would like to preface this article by stating that all of you incoming freshmen are lucky bastards. Wildcat Welcome Week is easily one of the greatest weeks in college (I see you, Halloweek). It is literally a week of debauchery and a few early morning events that the University believes will deter you from drinking. Wildcat Welcome Week will be your first taste of true college freedom and tons of upperclassmen will be on campus with nothing to do but twirl their thumbs and do their best to corrupt the shit out of you.
Hey Wildcat’s! It’s the fourth quarter. It’s time to finish! So let’s put your hands up in the air while we try and figure out what the hell this song is about!
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Danzel begins his anthem with an imperative. More command than mere request, Wildcat fans are instructed to throw their hands up in the air to start the fourth quarter off right with a communal movement that celebrates the fleeting temporal relationship between a television timeout and the Northwestern secondary’s imminent collapse.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
A reiteration of Danzel’s requisition, harkening back to the initial invocation presented to fans through the luminous jumbotron specter at Ryan Field. There are only so many permutations with which one can raise one’s hands up in the air, but such trifles are not of concern to men like Danzel or Kain Colter.
16x: Air
Bridging the gap between the transcendent heavens and the solid gridiron where mortals run the spread is air — surrounding us, within us, throughout us — air, the wind modern man has breathed for longer than approximately 3,174.60 NU bowl droughts. Like Pat Fitzgerald, we return to the essence that begot us with arms open wide to the infinite blue beyond.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
God, I could just do this shit all motherfucking day.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Are they flashing WNBA scores up on the scoreboard? Oh wait, that’s just the Indiana final.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Danzel utilizes repetition to depict the subtle interplay between the verticality of your limbs and your levels of ampitude. This is a complex relationship that the 20,000 or so Nebraska fans in the stadium will never quite appreciate.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Were the rights to Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” really that expensive?
Yo party people come out sayin’ yeah
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
Danzel rapidly changes perspectives, venturing into the mind of party people. Although a bold display of empathy, I have to admit that when party people normally come out to my ragers, they normally say things like “Oh, you were serious about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory theme?” or “Man, it’s been such a long time since I’ve drank anything cheaper than Sköl!” Maybe Belgian party people just rage a little… differently than we do here.
Feel the vibe
And it’s gettin’ stronger
After setting up his song with repeated exposition viz a viz our hands in the air, Danzel announces his intention to delve into the atmosphere he and his audience have mutually created, expounding upon the aura, or “vibe,” that his beats have created within Ryan Field.
Feel the vibe
And it’s gettin’ stronger
Taken out of context, this line sounds exactly as stupid and/or sexual as it does within the context of this song.
GET THOSE HANDS UP IN THE MOTHERFUCKING AIR!!!
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
Party people come out sayin’ yeah
If any party people have somehow avoided raising there hands up in the air, now is the time for them to come out like a Freshman during Wildcat Welcome Week.
Party people come out, come out..
yo, Dj turn it on
LET’S GO ROUND TWO!!!
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Oh God. There are only so many times I can put my hands up in the air… I think my forearms are more sore than Monica Lewinsky’s in the Oval Office. Must. Keep. Getting. Pumped.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
A bit of biographical information on Danzel. Born “Johan Waem,” the musician broke out of a perpetual cycle of chocolate addiction in the waffle house slums of Antwerp that plagues so many other young Belgians with his deep passion for house, techno, dance music, and getting you PUMPED for the fourth quarter of football games.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Surprisingly, this song peaked at Number 6 in the UK Dance Charts in 2005 but never garnered much interest anywhere else. How the hell it became an NU tradition is anyone’s guess.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
Speaking of which, can something really be a “tradition” if it was instituted less than two years after we elected our current president? Looking at you, March Through the Arch.
[INSTRUMENTAL BREAK]
Danzel takes a quick break from pumping you up, providing ample time for the jumbotron to display pre-meds dancing more awkwardly than Mitt Romney at a RZA show.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
What Northwestern lacks in terms of facilities, season-ticket holders, or a pass rushing attack, it more than makes up for with its fan base’s threatening ability to raise its hands up in the air for extended periods of time.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
GET SOME, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA!!! Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
I assume this is also what House Republicans said when they held the government hostage this spring. On an unrelated note: I bet love to see Paul Ryan play running back. The dude makes social welfare cuts quicker than Venric Mark on a kick return.
Put your hands up in the air
Put your hands up in the air
The strength of Danzel’s mantra lies in its specific spatial reference point. The bard is imploring his audience to place their hands — one of the most essential tools of the human body — in the very oxygen we breathe, interweaving the supple protoplasm of man with the zephyrous troposphere that sustains us.
[FADEOUT]
Wildcat fans are led to believe that Danzel’s jam will continue ad nauseam, a never ending ode to the power of triumphantly raising one’s hands in the air into perpetuity in order to raise stokeage levels at Ryan Field to near illegal levels in Evanston.
NOTE: According to the Illinois Liquor Control Act of 1934, no person under the age of 21 years old may purchase, drink or possess any alcoholic beverage. Therefore, I would like to ask anyone under 21 years of age to stop reading this post and go back to watching Dora the Explorer or whatever the fuck you children do. I would also like to point out that while this post is intended for incoming freshman, I am assuming that the vast majority of freshman took three consecutive gap-years (The Gapfecta) and are currently 21.
Sherman Ave 
