12 Mean Girls GIFs That Accurately Describe Your Undergrad Experience
Nothing quite captures your undergraduate experience like Mean Girls. Whilst fortunately it isn’t so dramatic (or mean!) there are a few things that this classic early 2000’s movie got right. Here are just a few of those moments we here at SOCIETY19 think are most fitting of degree year life that you can look forward to.
Year one, week one. You embark on moving day and Fresher’s Week with more commitment than you’ve shown towards anything in your entire life.
Everything is strange, new and exciting.
Testing the waters, you sign up for every club and society you can because how can you possibly choose?
Those first few lectures every year can be beyond confusing.
After a long summer of resting, the jargon comes flooding back and you reach for your handy pocket textbook of everything formula related.
Though at first it seems a slog, within a few days you are racing through those essay questions and pop quizzes better than Einstein himself could’ve managed. It’s like you’re suddenly fluent in another language and ready to take on the world. Like this part of Mean Girls…
You meet your true friends through a united love of not only your subject, but avoiding your kitchen supplies as much as possible.
With things being as busy as they are, can you possibly be to blame? Of course not! Curly fries and hot chocolate outings are a go to resource for venting when things seem too much or when you’re missing home. Food and a good chat is the way to resolve any problem, no matter how big or small.
The pressure you provide as your own harshest critic tends to be your worst downfall. It’s definitely the most difficult thing you have to go through at university and is where you’ll grow the most.
Your undergraduate will really test your limits when it comes to finding your own voice and how you balance everything you do. Make sure you emphasise practicing self care and don’t hate on yourself too much! You’ve done amazingly to get to where you are and the hard work you put in is paying off, it’s just not visible yet.
Time exists differently for students, kind of like the 1 human year is 7 dog years rule.
Whilst second semester tends to drag, those first ones always race by. Before you know it, it’s time for mid-term exams and those initial assignments to be submitted.
Keep breathing through it and pace yourself. Much as time will fly by every time you blink, so long as you keep taking notes and stay up to date you’ll make it through alive.
When you figure out the key to success is getting organised early, you’ll be standing calm amidst a sea of chaos.
To make sure you’re not one of the many lost whales in that ocean, save everything to multiple USB’s and do not trust technology to save it the first time. Trust me, far too many wiped essays later I am all the wiser.
Whilst it’s easy to skip out on copying up notes or getting in some research early, you’ll really regret it later. Plan at least one hour into every day of your undergraduate where you assess and prioritise everything that needs to get done. You’ll thank both me and yourself for it later.
Time passing also has a direct correlation with your improvement rate.
Apply yourself fully, even if this is just trying your absolute best and hoping things work out, and you will see yourself beginning to progress the way you were hoping to. As things slowly start to come together and you see your grades improving alongside this, Gretchen Weiners has the only fitting response. In the words of Gretchen from Mean Girls…
Trying to get accustomed to calling teachers by their first names after only ever referring to them by Sir or Miss is a real struggle.
It doesn’t necessarily get easier as old habits die hard. But just remember, they are there to help and taking away the title makes it much easier to be open about where you might be struggling in your papers.
Everyone is an adult now so it is important to behave like one. Keep the conversation going about how you want to improve and where you think you might need more help to keep things going in the right direction. If something is too challenging, be active about finding out how you can make it more accessible.
At the beginning of each year, you’re so ahead on the class work and amazing at keeping up with the laundry.
But after the fiasco in week 4 where you run out of enough clean jeans for a full fortnight, the outfit plan is put in place to prevent any further wardrobe disasters. Remember to wear your favourite shades of pink on Wednesdays! As Karen says in Mean Girls…
When it finally gets to Christmas, much as you’ll miss all of your friends and the study schedule you’ve gotten into, you can’t help but be the most excited you’ve been for the freedom to go home.
Prepare for the occasion by buying anything within a 3 meter range that has an image of Santa Claus or Rudolph. Like certain outfits we see in Mean Girls…
The stress is such that by your final semester, you’re going to be so beyond well equipped with fighting off distractions it is untrue.
And of course, this means having the best come backs in the entire university. If people want to get between you and your dissertation, you know what to do.
By the time the summer is over and you’re in your first year as a none undergraduate student, something kicks in that makes you want to go back and never age.
The rose coloured glasses erase all of the stress induced hyperventilation and all nighters, replacing them instead with only the best of your memories.
And whilst you can’t go back and relive it all, you can pass on that advice to younger siblings and cousins who might need it – they have to start right at the beginning and figure out everything you are now an expert in.
Thus the cycle begins again, but they’ll soon learn that ‘fetch isn’t going to happen’ and that Wednesday will always be the day to wear pink. Take this GIF from Mean Girls as an example.
