I was told that it’s Pace Chronicle tradition for seniors to write an editorial about their experience at Pace, and that’s weird to me, considering I’ve spent all of this time writing about others. I’m not quite sure where to start, or how to make this a creative or an interesting read. So I’ll just throw some words for you to catch.

My name’s been printed across the top of every article I’ve written this year as CECILIA LEVINE, Managing Editor, but my friends call me Ceci, or CeCe, or CC. I came to Pace midway through the Jersey Shore saga in 2010, which was an incredible culture shock to me as I had previously been attending a prim and proper Jewish day school with a graduating class of 14 students.

Most people on campus seemed like cookie cutters of MTV’s most famous cast members as they clogged the halls of Miller with cologne and used phrases like “OD” and “I’m dead,” which really made no logical sense at all and broke every grammatical and scientific rule of life. Through the characters I’ve met and situations I’ve encountered at Pace, I’ve learned many things that shouldn’t have taken four years to gather. I present to you, the unofficial Pace University student handbook:

1. Don’t wear your swipes around your neck unless you want to be labeled a freshman literally forever.
2. Townhouse Day is a holy day and anything or anyone that threatens its existence is dead to the Pace community.
3. Wait for your professor to tell you when to buy the textbook, otherwise, don’t bother.
4. The traffic light outside of entrance three should be treated as a stop sign between the hours of 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.
5. Do make friends with the cashiers in Kessel, even Belkis.
6. OSA = Office of Severe Annoyance – avoid this building at all costs, pun-intended.
7. AOKs are the most stressful classes that you will ever take, electives a close second. Ceramics and art history, points in case – check mate!
8. Commuters don’t typically hang out in the commuter lounge, and they always look better than dormers, especially during finals.
9. Paulie’s is for Thursday nights and Michael’s is for Saturday nights. If you don’t have a fake ID, good luck, Chuck.
10. You will run out of meal card money, and if you don’t, you’ll be everyone’s best friend come December and May.
11. On-campus parties get shut down at 1 a.m., although my sophomore year they made a rule that if the football team won a game the parties that night wouldn’t be shut down. We had one good party that year.
12. Briarcliff students are their own people, I think they come in peace but I’m really not sure. The same goes for NYC students. Who are they?
13. The goats are the greatest form of therapy ever. Talk to them and pet them, they will not fail you.
14. If there is a snow day, Pace will call, text and email you and your parents. Maybe next year they’ll nail FaceTime, too.
15. Class registration times will never be convenient.
16. Dr. Hundersmarck is more knowledgeable than the encyclopedia and his classes are mandatory addendums to that of Pace’s curriculum.
17. If you want to be a nursing major you’re going to have to make some serious sacrifices which most people aren’t willing to make. Also, nursing students are allowed to wear Crocs, free of judgment. They can do whatever they want; they’re going to save your lives one day.
18. The wifi sucks, get over it.
19. So does the parking situation.
20. You will be the first person to defend Pace University, no matter how embarrassing the mascot is. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I quickly learned that not everything that the Pace has to offer is that of a traditional university, it’s better. Okay, yeah maybe it sucks that we do the same thing every damn weekend and there is literally never anything to eat, but all of these little things that we claim to hate so much are what we will remember. Students that go to schools with spacious gyms won’t make friends in line for the bench press or get on a nickname basis with professors. Some things that happen at Pace don’t happen at other schools, like that time someone on the swim team pulled the fire alarm at 6 a.m. and everyone got a free pass to skip class so they could sleep in. Our school is absolutely ridiculous and I have learned to love everything about it, maybe with the exception of the small community of stink bugs that live on the third floor of North Hall (can someone call an exterminator?).

Shout-out to Pace Security for keeping me super safe and never failing to alert my parents of changing weather patterns that they too are experiencing. Now can you PLEASE appeal my parking citations?

Much love,

Cecilia “Ceci, CeCe, CC” Levine

Former Managing Editor