You don’t have to pay your parking tickets if you get a refund of any kind each semester. They default to your Bursar’s account and get deducted. Just remember that when you’re missing the money later.

There’s actually no better time in your life to make a difference. Consider how many unique protections we get as college students. We’re technically not unemployed, and there are few things that can’t be justified as part of a liberal-arts, life-based pedagogy.

College is a good lesson at institutional bureaucracy. Take shots at beating it and know what you’re entitled to. Your money pays every single person who works here. Make an appointment with President Lester Lefton if you don’t like something — he works for you. Also, find out who acts on your behalf by crashing the next Board of Trustees meeting.

If you have to call something a résumé-builder, potential employers already see through it. Have personality and some substance. And do something where who you are matters. If you don’t know who you are, there are jobs to fill while you’re figuring it out.

Undergraduate Student Government is a résumé-builder. Enough said.

Be good at Google. Spend some time figuring it out. The beauty of the Internet is literally anything you could ever want or need is accessible through a few keystrokes and a click. You just have to know how to find it. And be patient.

This is the real world. We’re all guilty of saying, “When I get into the real world…” Sorry, this is your real life, and you’ve only got one. Stop putting off what you want to do “in the real world.” No excuses.

Many people and things, such as this list, are tacky and entirely cliché at some point, but don’t be so quick to judge.

Nothing gets people more excited than sex. All those other things — politics, religion, race — all go back to sex. If you don’t make a big deal about it by treating it like it’s as fundamental and routine as, say, breathing, people will flip, but you’ll be fine.

A walk of shame is only a walk of shame if someone notices. Or smells it on you. And even then, disdain is the best disguise for jealously.

You can’t do porn and be the editor of this newspaper. I tried.

It used to be that if you were really good at something, you didn’t have to go to college to be successful. If you consider higher education to be an industry, it’s a multi-trillion dollar business.

Emphasis on business — a business that sells single sheets of paper for $60,000 a pop. But, please, please, please stay in school if you want to be a doctor.

Meet people and go places. Spend money on meeting people and going places. All we have left to rely on when we die are our experiences and the people who become important to us along the way.

If you’re going to hate someone and stand in the way of them having the same rights you enjoy, at least understand them completely first.

Ignorance surely is bliss and laziness.

And don’t regret anything. Learn. Keep learning until your body fails you. Learn about life. Learn about being human. Accept it. Make the most of it. And keep coming back for more.

Adam Griffiths is a senior visual journalism major and guest columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected], keep up with him at facebook.com/adamgriffiths or @adamgriffiths.