To all the new freshmen at Iowa State, we welcome you to college! Before you came, guidance counselors and ISU admissions officers alike told you college is four years of self discovery and “becoming your best.”

Guess what— they’re wrong.

If you’ve watched any of the dozens of second-rate movies or TV shows about college (“Old School,” “Animal House,” “PCU,” “Van Wilder”) your expectation of university life is a world where partying takes on Homeric proportions and every student is a cardboard-thin stereotype.

If those movies are true about college life, it’s time to forget about becoming your best and start thinking about which stereotype will be yours for the next four — or five — years.

There’s a smorgasbord of college stereotypes from which to choose. Here are the stereotypes you find in the movies and have come to believe are true.

The Enginerd:

This stereotype make’s up most of Iowa State’s population. Don’t forget that you now attend The Iowa State University of Science and Technology.

Some of these students literally live in the engineering building and have become a separate species with their own customs and language: “My TI-92 can ‘ownzor’ your crappy HP!”

These people study more than anyone else on campus, but if there’s any truth in those “Revenge of the Nerds” movies, they derive much pleasure from hitting the books. When times become too stressful for the enginerds, they blow off steam by writing Star Trek fanfiction. In these stories, they use their phasers to blast a Klingon that looks suspiciously like their overbearing fluid dynamics professor.

The Frat Boy:

There’s little point in mentioning this stereotype, since it’s become the standard for every movie or show ever made about college. I only have to mention John Belushi and beer bongs, and you can fill in the blanks.

The Pretentious Hipster:

These hipper-than-thou music lovers have forgotten more about the latest indie bands than you’ll ever know. Armed with their horn-rimmed glasses and massive collection of vinyl, they make sure to let you know their disapproval of your Three Doors Down poster.

Several pretentious hipsters host their own music shows on the college radio station (such as 88.5). They always speak with a monotone voice and will gladly give you information on a band’s new side project.

The Hippy Athlete:

These friendly creatures can be found on central campus playing non-sports such as Frisbee, kite flying or footbag. With their Birkenstocks and String Cheese Incident CDs in tow, they’re always ready to play a sport that doesn’t require running.

The athletic hippy manages to unwind by playing 18 holes at the Frisbee golf course south of Towers. While they may not be the best players on the course, they’re always ready to “hit the green.”

There are countless other stereotypes that I didn’t have space to mention, like bar hoppers, feminazis, jocks, etc. Thankfully, most students aren’t a walking stereotype. Iowa State isn’t a land of cardboard-thin people whose character development is limited to a 90-minute movie. It’s a three-dimensional place and so are its students.

For example, not all engineers are nerds who study as a perverse form of pleasure. Most of them have to in order to maintain the massive weight of their classes. I was an engineer for two years, and know that they easily take on twice the work load of any liberal arts major.

But that doesn’t mean stereotypes don’t exist. There are many days when I see throngs of honest-to-God engineering nerds walking out of Atanasoff Hall. When I hear one bragging to his friends about his TI Voyager 200 calculator, I’m tempted to tell him to buy a bus ticket to Hollywood and hire an agent.

He might find himself a part in a movie.