The beginning of another year is upon us.

As the weather holds its sunny, 80 degree outlook, a walk across campus will reveal the sweet aroma of hot dogs, potato chips, cookies and soda.

Picnics are abundant during this “impress the freshmen” season. With Convocation, Campus Fest, endless organization picnics and Greek recruitment, a person can find food around every corner, and best of all, it’s free.

Now when I first came to BGSU, I still held onto my mother’s teaching to politely turn down food when I had plenty of my own.

Still, another part of me refused the tables full of chafing dishes because I didn’t want to be seen as one of those “pathetic freshmen” who had been sucked into the hype of BGSU.

Those ideals of politeness and reputation didn’t last very long. The prices of the dining halls and lack of cash soon hit me where it hurt: right in the stomach.

It taught me a valuable lesson: you’re never too cool for free food.

I know hot dogs and hamburgers are not the most appealing foods, but suck it up because it could be worse.

At the end of the semester, when your meal plan has run out and you’re living on popcorn and your last two cans of ravioli, you’ll be thinking, “man, I wish I had saved some money by eating all the free food I could fit on my styrofoam plate.”

Not to mention while you’re out on the lawn shoving Doritos into your pockets you might come across something cool, like the hosts of the event.

These picnics are put on by various organizations who know they’ll draw a crowd with free food.

Then, perhaps some of the stragglers might actually listen to their spiels about why you should join Greek life or be a campus tour guide or even work at the University Bookstore.

Don’t be discouraged by cheesy welcome events and the very creepy giant falcons who will sneak up on you and try to get you to smile for the camera. These events have some hidden benefits.

Take Campus Fest, for example. The bounty of all campus picnics, when 300 plus student organizations will line the sidewalks equipped with dazzling tri-fold boards, matching T-shirts and what else? Why more free stuff of course!

And besides food, there will be so many useless but strangely fun items like Frisbees, stress balls, posters and enough brochures to make any forest cringe in fear that it might be next.

The more gracious organizations will know enough to hand out water, a commodity which Dining Services will run short on about an hour after festivities begin.

But seriously, there is an organization for everyone during this mad circus which takes place September 8 from 11:00-3:00 .

Even if you couldn’t give a flying fig less about taking part in the campus community, go for the food.

At the end of the semester when you have just enough Flexfunds left to grab a cup of coveted Starbucks for exam crunch time, you will thank me.

Realize that other people were depending on me to deliver, so I had to do my best because involvement teaches a lot about teamwork, too.

Send comments to Amanda Hoover at [email protected]