Editorial: A Letter to Our Past Selves

To us, two semesters ago,

You may not be ready now. But you will be if you take the following advice.

Good luck with what comes ahead.

First: savor the privilege of having a refrigerator, freezer, and microwave in every room, like a toy in a McDonald’s happy meal. Sorry, we tried our best. Perhaps the void will be filled with mammoth-branded waffles, pho that doesn’t give you food poisoning (this time), and a romantic Valentine’s Day meal full of lobster ravioli, with elegantly arranged flowers on each table.

But please, never get too used to the Val layout. The peanut butter will move, the sunflower butter will disappear, and you’ll even come back from J-Term to find a spice rack. Oh, and the soft serve will be gone too, replaced by something called “hard-dip,” still in the most inconvenient spot ever, but also still delicious. The signs for your food might suddenly be in Italian (or French?), and the playlist will veer from Playboi Carti to the Marias without warning, but somehow soundtrack your semester. Accept it, adapt, and move on.

Invest in a heavy jacket. It will be a long winter, and when it snows for the first time, you will romanticize it, but by February, when the groundhog doesn’t come out of its cave and you expect six more weeks of winter, we assure you, it will no longer be romantic at all. And please learn to skate. It will alternate between snow, freezing rain, and hail, and the sidewalks and roads will be covered in ice — lots of black ice — for weeks. You will not be able to casually wear sneakers and your Uggs will not save you, so better lace up.

You will have many ups and downs. Literally, when sledding down Memorial Hill on that one Snow Day. But more metaphorically, everyone's favorite restaurant, Arigato, will close, and it will be devastating. But you will also gain free Royal Chicken a few times on some random Fridays.

There will be protests: from Sarat, outside Town Hall; from town residents, on the Town Common. All against the White House. There will be an unfinished student center and a beam to sign. Orion Sun will play a set. WAMH will throw a Boiler Room. LitFest will bring Dr. Anthony Fauci.

And yes — Jeb Allen ’27 will write another op-ed. And another. And news about it will spread like wildfire.

Trust us: Don’t live in Plimpton. And if you choose Seelye, just be ready to walk your laundry over to Hitchcock and Mayo-Smith. You might find an unexpected ally in Cohan: next year, it will no longer squeeze sophomores together in shoe-boxes and will instead turn its rooms into singles.

But more than that, there will be raves, casino nights, and last dances. The annual white tent in between Chapin and Val, where we will say our goodbyes and how much we’ll miss everyone, celebrating both the end and the beginning.

And above all, a year-long deliberation by The Student (yours truly) to rigorously research which Goldfish and Pringles flavors rank supreme. Don’t: try the Salt and Vinegar Crisps Goldfish or the Cheddar & Sour Cream Pringles Mingles. Do: try the Frank’s Red Hot Goldfish and the regular Cheddar & Sour Cream Pringles.

So savor everything — from the random birdcam on the Val TV screen every week, where we got to see the chicks hatch and grow up, to that sudden email about a new three-sentence honor code, to the long Grab-n-Go lines and Val self-serve, the moments that made no sense but somehow made the year. Because it all went by fast.

And next year? You’ll be just as confused. But that comes with the territory.

Sincerely,

Your Future Selves