Dear Editor, The school year has come again. Flocks of students can be seen walking, bike riding, Vespa-ing (?) and occasionally running to class. There are meal times at cafeterias, social school gatherings, extracurricular clubs, but this school year feels awfully different. Why might that be? Well, we are all now officially in college. High school is only a useless and tiny memory in our brain. It feels weird to say, but we are all in college. Classes started not too long ago, meeting new people everyday is fun and intimidating, but hey ­— it’s college, that’s what you do. Besides the fact that college has proven to be nothing less than the fodder of middle-aged nostalgia, there’s been one little issue that’s been bothering me. Money. So we’ve spent all summer making it, cherishing every little drop, refusing to spend that extra 20 cents on gas when our parents make us fill up the car and then all of a sudden we get to college, and poof! It’s gone. Half the bank account is empty — or half full, if you’re optimistic. You look back on the past week and question what you’ve done wrong!? Did you buy too much late night coffee, too many vending machine snacks, but you’re thinking really hard and you don’t know what it could be. Then you realize how UVM has transformed you into this crazy money-spending machine. All those little table booths inside and outside the Davis Center. You walk up to look at the pretty earrings and bedazzling scarves, and before you know, it you’re walking back to your residence hall 30 bucks later, with another scarf to add to your collection that you don’t need! And then there are the things you absolutely need. Textbooks, review books and moleskins for your artsy inner self. Of course your parents coax you into buying them yourself, complaining they have the hefty weight of your tuition on their now pension-less hands. So you convince yourself you’re doing humanity some good — and by humanity I mean your parents — and buy some textbooks. Three hundred dollars later, you find yourself sitting on the curb outside your dorm, with not a dollar to your name, too poor to buy your weekly cigarettes. Ah yes, you’ve now officially entered the realm of college. You then ask yourself, how could UVM do this to you? They inadvertently forced the spending of your money, the cold hard cash you earned at a minimum wage rate all summer. A solution? Walk though the Davis Center blindfolded, with three minutes left to get to class. You’ll never have time to look at the pretty stands of useless junk. But really, just fight the urge. Budget your money accordingly and realize no one is going to fill your bank account if you use it mercilessly. So be wise, and financially smart.   Sincerely, Peyton Rosenthal Class of 2015