The “freshman flu” turns out to be real, especially if you live in the dorms. With close quarters, small rooms, sick roommates and sick neighbors, disease spreads faster than you think.

Some of the illnesses that are best known for affecting college students are the cold, flu, strep throat, sinus infections, ear infections, meningitis and mono. 

You might be worried about catching germs floating around the dorm air, but they are preventable. You should be following these steps if you want to keep yourself and others from getting sick. 

First and foremost, get your immunizations before going to school. UPMC HealthBeat, another medical forum focused on living and wellness, talks about simple solutions to preventing getting sick in college, and vaccinations were one of them. Without being vaccinated, “not only is it easier to catch a cold or the flu, but you have a greater chance of developing meningitis, a serious and potentially fatal infection of the membranes that cover the brain.”

Callie West, a University of Oregon graduate student and Resident Assistant, talked about her experience with the flu shot. “I try and get it every year, just makes me feel safer knowing there’s a lower chance of me catching anything, I recommend that all dorm residents get one.” 

Easy things you can do are keeping your dorm room clean and encouraging your roommate to also keep their stuff clean, so you both stay healthier. Washing your hands with antibacterial soap helps as well. Another tip is to not share food or drinks with other people. 

Hannah Goode, a writer for Medium, highlights the importance of taking vitamins, “one of the most important vitamins to boost your immune system is Vitamin C. If you’d rather not take actual vitamins, you can get Vitamin C many other ways, like increasing the number of fruits and veggies you eat.”

One approach I liked was keeping a medicine cabinet. Some popular things to keep in your dorm to help heal that wintertime flu would be a first aid kit, thermometer, your required medications, Tylenol, ibuprofen, antacids,cough drops and my favorite being Dayquil/Nightquil. 

Colby Herman, a UO sophomore student said, “Ever since Freshman year of college I have had a cabinet that I have stocked up with different cold meds and vitamins, I take the vitamins daily, so far I haven’t been sick in forever and when I do I’m prepared.”

If you happen to get sick even after these precautions, I have plenty of other recommendations. 

UO has an amazing health center right across the street from Oregon Hall for easily-accessible medical attention. 

In the comfort of your dorm, I recommend  eating broths and soups. Chicken broth has many benefits besides being tasty; it keeps you hydrated and is easy to digest. You can also incorporate things like ginger and garlic which are good for the immune system. 

Christine Stabler, a medical director for women’s health for Lancaster General Health, recommends the “BRAT” diet for students with upset stomachs and other gastrointestinal problems. “The acronym BRAT stands for: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. What do all of these things have in common? They’re all quite bland.” 

Stabler says that you should avoid greasy foods, hearty vegetables and dairy, but drinking lots of water while sick.

These tips and tricks are the best way to keep yourself from catching something nasty from one of the residents living in your dorm. These have worked for me, worked for my fellow friends, and were recommended by doctors. 

I, for one, did not take the SATs in high school. I didn’t even try after the pandemic, primarily because I knew that taking classes from home during COVID stunted my academic growth, so I knew that I wasn’t going to make it far by taking any standardized test.

There wasn’t a point anymore. As New York Times journalist David Leonhardt states: “After the Covid pandemic made it difficult for high school students to take the SAT and ACT, dozens of selective colleges dropped their requirement that applicants do so. Colleges described the move as temporary, but nearly all have since stuck to a test-optional policy.”

Thankfully, the University of Oregon has stuck with a  “test-optional” admissions policy, allowing many students to apply with a better advantage after the pandemic. 

Thousands of students skipped it based on the same reason I didn’t take it. If I had to have taken the SATs before college,I wouldn’t be where I am today. Many other students feel the same. 

UO sophomore Madeline Moore said,“I didn’t take the SATs mainly because most colleges didn’t require them, and I was nervous to take them in general.”

However, some Universities are starting to move away from being “test optional” and reinstating the SATs for enrollment. 

Which schools you may ask?  The list includes Ivy League schools such as Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale. It almost makes sense to have the requirement reinstated at these schools due to the prestigious stereotype and history of each university. 

Other private and public universities such as MIT, Georgetown, CalTech, Florida State, Fairmont State, Purdue, University of Texas, University of Tennessee, and many others plan on or have already reinstated the SAT. 

At first glance, these universities’ choice to require the SAT may seem unimportant, but these schools’ GPAs are higher than average. It’s not exactly fair to all of a sudden change the requirements for future incoming students when the rest of the applicants “got it easy” in previous years.

Many of these students still had to struggle through the hardships of COVID-19 learning and readjust to in-person instruction after online classes. COVID-19 has affected a larger portion of this generation than universities think, even if they weren’t in high school at the time. I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to change the enrollment policy to require SATs after letting students enroll without them since 2020.

I think that the SATs aren’t the best way to reflect a student’s knowledge of a subject. Everyone’s brain works differently, and they learn and execute what they learn in different ways. In no way are SATs justifiable ways to determine someone’s intelligence. 

We have score gaps, socioeconomic background, different types of test preparation, test accuracy, calculator access, etc… 

Leah Lehmkuhl, a journalist for “The Reflector,” wrote, “An unsatisfactory test score should not determine a student’s level of college readiness or eligibility to go to an elite college, especially when considering the disparities between the test scores of students with different socio-economic statuses.”

At the end of the day, SATs are pointless. There are better alternatives to determining whether someone belongs at a university. 

Picture this: you take a psychology class and you soon discover that this class isn’t working for you but you stick with it. the professor is not to your liking, and they may have been unfair with their assignments and how they were graded. What are you left with? It was a terrible experience and probably left a dip in your GPA. If you were paired with a bad professor you should have the freedom to express it. 

Some may expect there to be bias in grading professors. Students who report negatively on their professors could be the ones who didn’t attend class or slacked off, yet is that a majority of the case? This assumption is just the worst-case scenario, and at the end of the day, everyone has a right to their opinion as long as the reader takes it with a grain of salt. 

There are plenty of reasons why we should be able to grade a professor. What if you run into a professor who treats students in an unfavorable manner such as discrimination or negligence of a student? Miriam Amin, an opinion columnist who wrote an article for “Medium” about her experience, said, “I have not only witnessed racism and disrespect but also harassment or teachers that interrupt students. If a teacher meets any of these points, then he/she should not get away with it.” 

“The difference between a student and a teacher is only most likely age and knowledge. That does not mean that teachers can do whatever they want without consequences,” Miriam wrote. I have been in a classroom with teachers/professors who have stated their opinions without thinking of the student’s behalf. One of my teachers in high school talked about his marriages, and political standpoint, diminished the dreams of future college students and swore at his class. Needless to say, nothing happened to him. I had another who talked about her religious views and had the class pray with her one time. I was disturbed. 

Another benefit of grading your professors is that they gain insight into how to best support their students’ needs. They can read what students say and understand where they are lacking in the classroom. This can help future or current students gain better resources from their professor if they need assistance with upcoming assignments or lectures, and better alert professors that they need to extend the opportunity of help if need be. 

I think that the professor analysis at the end of each term on Duck Web is a great way to get your point across in a kind manner. You can access this toward the end of the term – the link provided at the top of DuckWeb will direct you to a site that allows you to review your professor. This is a tool that shouldn’t be looked over and rather be used efficiently for your and future students’ benefit. 

Nicole Rogers, a reporter and opinion writer for Sun News, said “But the power to grade teachers would be beneficial for everyone. It wouldn’t be used as a tool for harm or to be used when we don’t like the coursework or the teacher. It would be used for constructive criticism so the course can be better and beneficial for the students.”

Not every student is out to get their teacher by using methods like these that are available. “I know if I had the power to grade my teachers, I would use it fairly. I wouldn’t want to make a teacher’s life harder. They already have a hard enough job,” Rogers said. 

Students should have the ability to grade their professor as a right to speak freely about one’s experience. If students aim to better themselves and their peers through the DuckWeb questionnaires, Rate My Professors, or word of mouth, grading our professors can do much more good than bad.