Montreal's University Frosh Week: Here's How Not To Be A D*ck When It's Happening

Froshies: keep your bodily fluids to yourself

Try not to vomit, pee, or (God forbid) take a dump in the gardens or street corners or alleyways of the beautiful, admittedly chaotic city of Montreal.

The need to expel a substance is sometimes inevitable, so let's take a harm reduction approach: if you must, search for a trash can, nearby bag or handy receptacle so you're not ruining some nice person's roses with your rank combination of Sleeman's and $2 chow.

This is first not because it's most important, but because it nearly goes without saying, like the next point:

Don't pressure people to drink

...or do drugs! Or to do anything, really. Your first time in Montreal or your first time as a student is yours alone, and you shouldn't take those six-in-the-morning pregame seshes seriously if you don't want to.

Be careful with substances (seriously)

Yes, my mother's advice when I first began university was to agree to do everything at the beginning to make new friends, but does that mean you need to try coke on day one of your new scholastic career? Perhaps not.

Wait for day two.

(Kidding.)

If you do decide to indulge, make sure you're testing your substances and going slow. The only thing worse than not fitting in with the crowd is not living to see graduation. Harsh, true, obvious, important.

Remember that people actually live here...

Ultimately, the disgruntled many who dislike frosh week are right about one thing: it's annoying to have your neighbourhood transformed into a playground for late-teens to party it up and behave badly. Your midnight noise isn't only banned by the city, it's also inconsiderate and more than a little embarrassing. BUT! and it's a big but:

Montrealers: Remember that froshies are also, technically, people

Young, often loud, very excited and occasionally inconsiderate people, but people nonetheless. If there's a time in one's life to be wild and a little embarrassing, it's your late-teens and early twenties. Many froshies are small fish in a newly big pond, ready to fuck up and grow up and test the boundaries like they (we) did as children.

Compassion and consideration aren't one-way streets, and you can forgive a little late-night whooping and hollering for less than a week out of the year.

Remember what frosh is actually for

This one's for the froshies. Beyond the early-morning binge-drinking, socializing and getting the lay of the land re: bars, frosh is about inviting new people into a monumental phase of their lives, broadening their understanding of a city they may be unfamiliar with, and teaching them about the social dynamics of university life.

Sometimes, people do actually find their closest, longest friendships under such circumstances. Or just a one-night stand you awkwardly see in calc class for the next three years. Either way.

Keep in mind that official frosh isn't the only option

If you don't take advantage of frosh week as a time to expand your horizons beyond partying, you're not stupid or evil, but you're definitely going to have a skewed perception of the place many people call home.

Montreal isn't just downtown, it's not just Concordia or UQAM or McGill. It's not just Saint-Denis or Saint-Laurent or Mile End or the Plateau. It's everything and everyone who works, loves, struggles and dies here, regardless of whether you meet them at an August rager or see them every day on your way to class.

Montreal is also Tiohtià:ke, it's a historical site of meeting and exchange and learning and harsh, desolate history. It's a multiplicity of ecosystems both natural and unnatural, it's just a stupid fucking city with everyone you'll ever love in it.

Try visiting one of Montreal's myriad museums and art galleries, attending a concert from a band you've never heard of, or trekking into a far-flung borough for a cheap but delicious meal. Anything besides accepting your university's bubble as the centre of the universe.

Start loving Montreal now (before it's too late)

But if the universe did have a centre, Montreal wouldn't be a bad place for it, dear froshies. It's worth fighting to make the most memories here you can while you still have time.

Remember these late-August temperatures and the antics you got up to, remember the leaves changing as the classes start blending into each other. Keep waiting for the summer to come again, and remember to love it when it does, and to love the city through the winter even though it sucks. It will keep sucking. There's nothing you can do.

So love the food, the people, the vibes, the clubs, the parties, whatever, love the micro-community of neo-trad-Catholics chain-smoking outside your English department. Love the poutine and the cheap beer and the gay bars and the park-drinking and the park-smoking and the consistent lack of downtown park-ing. Love everything you can find and keep grabbing for more until you run out of space in your brain for all of the love.

So that when you leave — and you probably will — you're taking more than just the memories of nursing a hangover in Grey Nuns.