You can’t look to the stars or a crystal ball for insight on what the coming year will bring, but there are unavoidable feelings that coincide with each year.
If you check your horoscope daily or feel a Mercury retrograde in your bones, then you’ll be glad to have these horoscopes for each semester. The predictions may not be written in the stars, but these trends will give you a sneak peek of what’s to come.
Freshman year
Arriving on campus for your first semester can be nerve-wracking. You’re in a new school with unknown people, and likely in a unfamiliar city. You’ll decorate your Thurston Hall room with photos of your friends from high school that you won’t talk to by the middle of spring semester. You may be trembling now, but you’ll strut out of fall semester feeling like a District local ready to brag to your friends back home about living just a few blocks away from the White House.
When you arrived in the fall you were expecting to stroll onto the country’s most politically active campus, but now that GW dropped to the number 10 spot, you’ll make it your personal mission to add some “much-needed” politics to campus this spring semester. You’ve been to all the monuments, so you’re practically an American history scholar. And that Introduction to American Politics and Government class qualifies you for a spot in President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Every social interaction is grounds for a political debate at GW – especially when drinking is involved.
Sophomore year
Returning to Foggy Bottom will be a breath of fresh air this fall. When you go out on the first night back to campus, you’ll see the parade of freshmen girls strolling down F Street to their first fraternity party and laugh. You may secretly wish you were in their shoes with their whole freshman year ahead of them, but you’ll be happy when you retire to Gallery at the end of the night out instead of Carvings.
Whether you have an internship or a job, serve on the executive board of your student organization, have a killer course load or some combination of those – your calendar will be packed. During the spring semester, it’ll be easy to get caught up in your responsibilities and retire your wild freshman days for a bit. With so little free time, the semester will go by in a flash and you’ll officially be an upperclassman.
Junior year
Even though you’re likely dying to get back to campus after a summer at home with your parents and away from your friends in the District – you’re jaded. The buff and blue is enough to make you cringe and if one more tourist asks you how to get to the Metro when it’s right in front of you, you might scream. This semester, you’ll take any opportunity to get off campus, whether it’s heading to bars on U Street you’ve been sneaking into since sophomore year or spending the weekend brunching in Shaw.
This year feels a little different than the past two. Your Instagram feed will swap pictures of the Lincoln Memorial for the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the Hong Kong skyline as your friends, and maybe even you, spend a semester abroad. After skipping across the pond or patiently waiting for your friends to return, you’ll be more than ready to take on senior year.
Senior year
You’ve finally made it. Well, not quite. You still have to write your thesis, finish two semesters of classes, work an internship in hopes of landing a job and have some final fun before you and your friends part ways. As long as you take tasks one at a time during the fall semester and take a deep breath every once in a while, you’ll make it.
After triple checking you’ve met the graduation requirements and preparing for your family to descend upon the District, you’ll be ready to grab your diploma. When you finally make it to graduation day, you’ll look back on your four years at GW and maybe roll your eyes at the antics of your classmates or groan about University offices. But ultimately, you’ll be glad you spent your four years avoiding any type of school spirit, explaining to people why there’s a statue of a hippo on campus and drunkenly wandering to some of the most famous landmarks in the country.
