To all the students that just moved onto campus: welcome to the University of Nevada. You made a great decision in your choice of schools. As a student who lived on campus last year, I can attest to what a unique experience living in the residence halls can be.

I want your residence life experience to be one remembered positively, and that’s why I’m going to warn you about the biggest crime you can commit this year: following through with the “same-floor hookup.”

It’s your first time away from home and you’re excited about a lot of new things. It’s the same great feeling you had growing up when your parents would go out of town, except this time, they aren’t coming home.

You have no curfew, there is no one to tell you that sleeping for two days straight is wrong, and unless you end up with an OCD roommate, there will be no one to tell you when to clean your room.

But the most exciting thing about coming to college becomes apparent when you realize that the beautiful girl from the tennis team and the attractive guy from your Spanish class live on your floor.

Suddenly, the possibility of where the semester could go becomes endless, especially since most of you grew up with your brothers or sisters living down the hall.

I don’t care if you have Kendall Jenner or Zac Efron as your neighbor, put them in the friend zone immediately.

For starters, it will never last. You will not be hooking up with this person as long as you think. It will definitely end and there will be the awkward phase.

Having to be stuck in close quarters might result in lots of uncomfortable eye contact and even some conflict. If the problem continues, you might end up changing floors, or worse, moving buildings. Do you really want to risk the dope setup you have with your roommate, all for a hookup?

I question you as a human if you replied yes.

Furthermore, think of your floor as your domain, your dwelling quarters.

This is where you will be spending most of your time. After failing your first test puts you in a terrible mood, you’ll have to go back there. On Sundays when you’re using Netflix to procrastinate instead of doing your homework, this is where you’ll be.

When your former hookup texts you to hang out, you can’t even lie about where you are because they will be there too.

There is no question that those you share the floor with will become closest to you. To this day, I still keep in touch with many of those from my floor, especially
my roommate. Hooking up with someone that lives 25 feet away can be tempting, but bite the bullet my young wolf pups, and search elsewhere! Any other floor except your own!

The year is long, ladies and gentlemen, and you want to set yourselves up for success. Success in the classroom, success socially and, most importantly, success in keeping the place where you live one you want to come home to.

Brian Kehoe studies journalism. He can be reached at dcoffey@unr.edu.