Heartbreaking: OnIowa! Leader Witnesses Freshmen Make Past Mistakes

Every year, the incoming class of Hawkeyes gathers a week early to experience college life and traditions before returning students flood the halls and classes begin anew. To most, it feels less like an acclimation to university living and more like one big summer camp. And as a result, some must witness the consequences with greater clarity than others.

OnIowa! leaders are volunteers recruited by the University of Iowa to be present the week before classes. They move students in, host events, and ferry people around for the bigger events of OnIowa! week.

“Lots of my friends do it so they can move in early,” one leader, Nicolas Lambert, confessed, “but this year they started giving out scholarships and I figured, why not? What could go wrong?”

But Lambert soon realized there was something pivotal to the OnIowa! experience he was missing: Freshmen repeating the same mistakes he once committed years ago.

“Dude, you don’t even know the half of it. I moved in this quad of girls who were best friends in high school. They were all going to move in together.” He shuddered when recounting the event. “Do they know what’s gonna come for them in three months? No, scratch that, three weeks?”

The horrors didn’t end with move-in. “I overheard so many people talking about sleeping with their hallmates. I had to walk a hall to Kinnick that had already gone through several rounds of situationships. People were sobbing about peers they met five days ago, if even. How are they going to handle a lecture?”

Lambert was not safe from from these incidents his freshman year, either. Reports of him sleeping with a girl he’s shared almost every business-related lecture with were met with fierce defenses of “I didn’t know,” and “we did get back together during Halloweekend but it was kind of a one-time thing and…”

So nobody’s perfect, but are freshmen doomed to make the same stupid mistakes we once did? Is there anything we can do to warn them, or will they assume we’re condescending adults who hate having fun?

For now all we can do is hit the glass and hope they hear it, however futile. We can see, maybe predict the future of their friend groups or situationships, but all we can do is watch the fallout. Godspeed, class of 2029. And oh my god, that’s a real year.