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Welcome, new Bruins, to UCLA, the place where stuff happens. Yes, now you too can become an exciting part of this place and its stuff. Now stop saying “hella” and let’s get on with it.

You will note that in a campus of 35,000 students, the days of high school cliques are over and done with. It’s time to stop wearing that varsity jacket and using phrases like, “Dude, I could so kick that guy’s ass,” as they no longer carry the weight with the ladies that they used to. This is college, so it’s time to grow up to an entirely new level of immaturity.

This is my mission: to help you transition smoothly into your new social life. Being a Daily Bruin columnist, I don’t happen to have a life myself, but I’ve read quite a few books on the subject, and I think my theories may shed a little light on just what goes on at this campus.

By now you’re probably wondering, “When is he gonna start talking about the beer?” or, “I want some beer!” or possibly, “Beer good! Fire bad!” Do not fret, mon petit chou (French for “My little cabbage” – I’m not kidding). Here at college the ages of 17, 18, 19, and 20 are mere formalities, little stumbling blocks on your way to total plasteredness and bastardness.

Because this is your first experience with college, you are apt to act like kids in a candy store. Of course this isn’t so much a candy store as it is Uncle Jack Daniels’ Carnival of Shame. Yes, you and your fellow freshmen will make orientation a social-ladder-climbing experience like those you remember from high school, where whoever needs a liver transplant first wins. Then you will come to a realization, an enlightenment – what the French call a fontbleauuux (okay, so I don’t really know that much French). After that fontbleauuux, you’ll probably opt to climb a different ladder.

Many of our greatest thinkers have come to enlightenment this way, and even more of our worst thinkers have wound up there. I’m not here to tell you not to drink, as my stomach has certainly met its share of chemicals, but I will tell you this much: make it a guide to having other fun, don’t make the drinking itself the fun. Chicks don’t dig vomit, and guys don’t like having to help a girl fight gravity.

I think the great Romantic poet John Keats said it best in his “Ode on a Grecian Pledge”: With excess brewskies and the smoken weed, Thou, piece of arse, dost tease us out of pants, I wore Eternity: Cool Water! When hangovers shall leave an aftertaste, thou shalt remain in midst of other hoes than ours, “Just friends” with man, to whom dudes sayst, “Booty is truth, truth booty,” – that is all I know on earth, ‘cause I just drank the coolant out of my car, dude.

That being said, eat, drink and be merry. Girls, beware the booze at the frat party. You will find there are two kinds of girls at UCLA: frat hoes, and non-frat hoes. Frat houses can be a dangerous place. If those walls could talk, they’d have to testify. But if you do choose to go, here is a short list of things you should never say at a frat party:

1. I’m a freshman (you don’t have to say it, believe me, they’ll know).

2. I can drink you under the table (this ain’t like “Raiders of the Lost Ark”).

3. Oh my God, you guys! No, seriously! (indicates you are dumb and therefore more vulnerable)

4. I always get naked when I get drunk (you know who you are).

Girls, do be careful when swimming in the shark tank. At orientation they will show you an informative back-to-school special that warns, “You are going to get date-raped! It’s only a matter of time!” except with the optimism and pep of a young Tracey Gold. In addition to these programs, BearWear chastity belts are available for purchase in Ackerman in a variety of colors. The system contains a lock that is far too complicated for any drunk to undo, much like the hooks on your bra.

But Bruin social life isn’t all seedy backrooms and miscellaneous chemicals. There’s plenty of good, clean fun to be had around here, like football games (tailgate parties), theater (cast parties), and Hillel (all the Manischewitz you can handle. L’chaim!).

For those of you who are more politically active, there should be plenty of rallies and protests to keep you occupied. We have a long tradition here at UCLA of staging demonstrations for causes that are not only impossible to have an effect on, but that are almost unheard of anywhere else. Forget civil rights or the death penalty, because there’s a guy somewhere in Uzbekistan who is writing an offensive chain letter that must be stopped. Don’t just sit there and believe that one person can’t make a difference, prove it!

I’m also fairly certain that most of you miss the fun of sports back home, be it curling or cockfighting. Relax folks, this is UCLA, home of the Bruins, where our motto is, “No, you’re thinking of the hockey team from Boston!” Soon you’ll be doing the 8-clap and joining in a variety of other famous Bruin sporting traditions, such as standing through the entire game for no apparent reason.

At orientation you will also be introduced to what UCLA students hate most: Trojans (no, these aren’t more frat party date-rape jokes, I’m talking about USC). In the next couple of days you will hear every anti-Trojan joke ever written, to which you will say, “Hey, I liked that joke better when it was about Polish people.” Still, it is important to note that every stereotype you’ve heard about USC is 100 percent accurate. What do you expect from a school that is dumb enough to name its team after the people who lost the Trojan War? I mean, who names themselves after the losers? Notre Dame calls themselves the Fighting Irish, not the Capitulating French.

If you think Troy is a bad symbol for a school, it’s even worse for a condom. After all, think about just how the Trojans lost the war. They lost because a giant stallion penetrated their inner walls at night, under the guise of a gift, and just when they thought they were safe, the stallion burst open and thousands of little soldiers rushed forth ruining everything.

But I digress. I should be telling you about UCLA social life. Perhaps the best place to meet people will be the floor of your dorm, unless you live in the Sunset Suites, which aren’t as much dorms as they are dormant (so I say wake ‘em up!). The dorms are your chance to meet a hundred other students, all from such diverse and fascinating places as Northridge and Anaheim. It’s a place where embarrassing nicknames are forged, gossip is incubated, and boundless odors never fail to mystify. It’ll be the time of your life.

Ultimately, this place is like a little city, or perhaps a big one depending on where you’re from. You’ll meet, you’ll flirt, you’ll go out for coffee, then probably go out for coffee again. You’ll join, you’ll work, you’ll see your cash go bye-bye. You’ll study, you’ll stop going to class, you’ll cram, you’ll pray, you’ll speak expletives, but you’ll survive.

Enjoy your stay at UCLA. I guarantee it will be eventful, if nothing else. Welcome to the roller coaster to the highway to the edge of the future of tomorrow’s brighter, shinier tarmac to something or other!