Drew Goins (goodbye, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu) and Kelsey Weekman (HAGS) are the writers of UNC’s premier (only!) satirical advice column. Results may vary.
You: Graduation is, like, a week away! How do I get that last-minute cap-and-gown body?
You Asked for It: A strong fitness regimen is your first step. Squat on your landlord’s property, wishing for more time in Chapel Hill. Lunge to bars for a Red Oak to toast your best friends. Plank for hours at a time, paralyzed by the fear of what’s coming for you after you get your diploma.
Stay hype and emotional while you are exercising by listening exclusively to the greatest hits of Vitamin C. The endorphines will make you happy, but the song “Graduation” will rip your heart out. That’s, like, 11 ounces down right there.
If you don’t see results by your departmental ceremony, go for the robe itself. Don’t feel tied to the traditional, revealing two-piece cap and gown.
A more conservative cap-and-gankini employs a bit of Carolina Blue fabric to tastefully cover the midriff. Extra points if you DIY the gown using the fabric from your first-year dorm’s twin XL sheets.
But really — to quote body-positive Tumblrs worldwide — your only steps for a graduation robe body are: 1) to have a body and 2) to put on a robe.
You’re readier to move on than you know. You’ve got the feet that tripped over bricks your first day, the arms that embraced your classmates every time you sang the alma mater and the eyes that cried over victories and heartbreaks on the basketball court.
OK, maybe you just have the stomach that ate a weird amount of Late Night, but you’ve also got the heart that will remember this hill and beat for her people until you leave this world as a Tar Heel dead. Or until you get a call for alumni donations. Whichever happens to come first.
You: What now?
YAFI: The heck if we know! We’ve been pulling bad advice out of our butts for the past two years like some kind of magician with a daytime talk show.
We don’t actually know anything besides how to maintain sinister eyebrows and negotiate waaaay too much space for ourselves in print, but here’s some miscellaneous advice we won’t get to give anyone in our future careers as those people who hand out coupon books in the quad:
Not sure what to do with your life after graduation? Start a punk band or launch a multilevel digital marketing startup. It will make your parents raise their eyebrows, but that will keep their faces looking young.
Need cash quick? Sell your platelets or your roommate’s stereo. Either way, blood will be shed, and you’ll have a testimonial you can blog about for money.
Trying to hand someone a coupon book in the quad? Be more like spam email. Claim to be a dying prince from Cote d’Ivoire with a significant sum of money to distribute, or walk around yelling “UNBELIEVABLE WINTER SALES! V I A G R A as low as USDO.65 /PILL.”
Having a hard time finding parking in Chapel Hill? Consider enrolling in Physical Activities 234 — Creative Parking. It’s a one-hour class that also counts as a VP credit.
Whenever you’re late for your class, blame it on someone else’s Creative Parking project. Or dementors. Those darn “Harry Potter” kids never had to do any school work anyway.
If you need to add more words to an essay for a straight male teacher’s class, copy and paste the script of any Daniel Day-Lewis movie. His man crush will distract him from the actual content of whatever you’re writing about.
Do you want to have a tacit love affair? Write a satirical advice column with the person. You may grow to hate them over the years, but you will always have a bond of self-indulgence.
If you aren’t ready to move on from where you are in life, remember this absolute truth — life is not about the number of breaths you take. It’s about the number of rap songs you can recite all the words to at a party.
When you’re trying to say goodbye to something you have loved deeply for four years and just don’t know how, start rambling and never stop until you run out of space.
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