I know that you have been dragged to a dozen college-counseling sessions already, and that this year has been a hell consisting of reading terrifying newspaper stories about college admissions; of hearing the anguished screams of your competitive classmates; of noting your own pallor as you prepare for tests; and of seeing your parents in need of sedation. Worry not. I am not going to tell you how impossible it is to get into college. (It's not.) I want to tell you about what you ought to do when you are there.

Let me say at the outset that if college were as chaotic and miserable an experience as it is made out in fiction (The Secret History), one would be better off spending one's undergraduate years in traction. Novels and movies (Road Trip, National Lampoon's Animal House, PCU) make college seem like some manic fusion of football, hazing and lost weekends. If you've tuned in to Felicity, you are probably convinced that campus life is one long soap opera.

Be reassured: the cultural representations of college life are nothing like the real thing. The predominant condition of one's undergraduate years is muddle, and this is the way it should be. Muddling is the best reason for going to college, and the college years are the last time before drooling old age that one is allowed to muddle legally, without social penalty.

Muddling, though, is an art, and there are some things worth muddling about and some that are not. Here, then, is a brief list of the areas of confusion that await you, and a guide as to which of these to avoid, which to embrace.

More On Once You're There Naked Slept the Stranger Yup, it's a roommate story, so be prepared Meet Your Mentor Making the right connection can make a big difference Not Your Father's Fraternity No more binge drinking, hazing or womanizing Junior Year Abroad A semester in Nepal changed one student's outlook — and life Bridge to the "Real" World Internships help students turn classroom theory into careers Student Entrepeneur No place like college to meet a partner, make connections and start your own business Lending a Helping Hand Community service gives a panoramic worldview

The money fit The least interesting way for you to spend your time in college is worrying about how much money you will eventually make and what color BMW you will buy with it. It is very hard not to think about money these days because that is all anyone seems to do. What was once the forbidden subject is now the only subject. Household pets arise in the morning wondering how the Hang Seng market did overnight. Still, you will have to take my word for it: Anything done for money alone, or primarily, or even sort of, is ruinous. Besides, there's no trick to making money these days, no intellectual challenge. Why not rebel and stay poor?

The identity crisis This is the next least interesting way for you to employ your mind. Do not waste good muddle time attempting to discover if you are a good person. You are probably O.K.; most people are. And if you don't like your true self, be someone else. Use your ruminative time instead to decide the best way — ethical, practical — to act in specific situations. The unexamined life can be quite useful.

The reading room Now here is an activity worthy of your confusions, and if you do enough, it will add to your muddle gloriously. When in college, read. This is really what college is for — reading, mulling it over, stockpiling all that you can of the past. What other time of life will be given you when hanging out in the library is a normal part of the day's work? And remember that the books were written for you, not for the professors to teach you, but for you directly. The best books are muddle themselves. Make their uncertainty your own. Dream your way into the magnificent muddles of Lord Jim, the Great Gatsby, Invisible Man and King Lear. Let the characters and events storm around in your mind with a great, distracting noise.

The moral imperative Now that you have done some reading, make proper use of it: help others. One of the very useful things one learns in college is that most everyone is smart, and this in turn should tell you that being smart alone is insufficient for leading a decent existence. I cannot tell you how many perfectly intelligent, perfectly worthless people you will meet who will eventually become editors, scholars, entrepreneurs and the like who will lead self-centered lives and never lift a finger to help the desperate and the down-and-out. Study knowledge itself, and you will see there is no higher use for one's intelligence than acts of caritas and generosity. Learn this as an undergraduate, and you will save yourself bad company and many bad moves.

The pursuit of happiness I also urge you to use these years for avoiding conventional intellectual misery. This is not an easy thing to do, given the tendencies of most intellectuals to define life as an endless vale of tears. Yet at least half of one's experience — if one is being honest — refutes that dim view. Not that I would recommend adopting an attitude of giddy thoughtlessness; but there are several activities, such as the appreciative observation of nature, that will convince you that living has its good points.

Finally, you might use these years to try your hand at creating a novel or movie depicting college life — about a young man or woman enjoying friends, teachers, most courses; who sleeps till noon, lives on pizza and Fritos, wears the same jeans for two weeks, neglects to phone home and, when home does the phoning, answers "Nothing" to the question, "What are you doing?" but who is nonetheless awash in new ideas, and rattled and thrilled and muddling through. All that these years require of this student is to think and think again. Who would believe such a story?

Source: TIME/The Princeton Review's The Best College For You 2001