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During my first year of college, I was known for one skill: being able to tell what was for dinner in the Union from the middle of the Yard. I could discern the faint differences between the aroma of the scorched oil they used to cook fried chicken and the slightly pungent, greasy scent of spicy waffle fries. You could never get Hamburger Extravaganza past me.

My new friends were amazed. We were at a school where classmates were creating their own mathematical formulas and writing computer programs that could run New England Telephone, and I could smell dinner from 200 yards away. We all felt so talented--and so glad to be around talented people.

In knew from the start that there wasn't much future in marketing my olfactory senses. By the time I started my sophomore year, there was a new head of dining services--we finally had food you could eat, as well as smell.

Luckily, I had decided early on to develop other skills. I joined the media. The Harvard media--home of the future cultural elite. I learned how to stomach greasy hamburgers at four in the morning while inhaling secondhand cigar smoke and ink fumes. Most importantly, I learned how to smell a scandal from miles away.

The public relations director for "America's Most Wanted" once told me that he sees his show as a public service for the American people. We help catch criminals, he said. We save lives.

I can't claim such a high purpose for my art yet. But in similar fashion, upperclass students have a responsibility to pass on their knowledge to those who are just beginning. I like to think I can help in this crusade.

I can dredge up my first-year memories of other people's miseries and failures. Like the best reality-based television show, I too can exploit the pain of my fellow students--portray their suffering in chilling accuracy and technicolor.

So, welcome to the reality-based college!

Of course, Harvard may seem about as real to incoming first-year students as West Beverly High does to anyone over 30, but come September 11, it will be as spookily real as a "Nightline" program with Dan Quayle as the main guest. Spend one sticky day listening to speeches by administrators who you may never see again and slurping melted ice cream at an orientation week social event, and you will be ready to join the ranks of the higher educated--those who constantly clamor for experiences in The Real World.

Trust me, by this time next year, you will look back on your first year of college and it will seem like an unbelievable conglomeration of every bad TV show you've ever watched. I have compiled here some of the more compelling dramas of my first year at school. All of the events recounted here are true. Only the names have been changed to protect those in evolved (and me, for spilling these stories). Look for these listings in your local TV guide.

Rescue 911: During orientation week, an enthusiastic first-year student stays up all night to study for the QRR test. Early in the morning, she falls asleep and wakes up 45 minutes into the test. She runs into the hallway in her pajamas to find her proctor. The door locks behind her. The Harvard police come to open the door. But they don't have a number two pencil.

Real World: Harvard Real Estate chooses several hundred typical first-year students, throws them into apartments at 29 Garden Street and chronicles their experiences as they try to make their way each day through the jungle of the Cambridge Commons to the Union for breakfast.

Frugal Gourmet: necessary recipes to supplement dining hall fare: Wigglesworth salad dressing--mustard, vinegar and oil and dill; honey-mustard sauce--honey mixed with mustard; Store 24 Burritos--burrito, microwave, iron stomach.

Studs: First date: girl meets boy. Girl likes boy. Second date (time elapsed four months): Girl dumps boy (or boy dumps girl). Third date (time elapsed two years): Boy ends up going out with girl's junior year roommate.

Cambridge's Most Wanted: A couple rents a car and sneaks away for the weekend without informing either set of parents. They get rear-ended in Vermont by a drunk escaped convict and have to call their folks from a police station.

The People's Court: Plaintiffs, a set of strict New England parents, sue daughter for return of credit card for unauthorized use.

Just like reality-based TV shows, you'll turn the real into the unreal. And if you're lucky, you'll get renewed for another season.

Beth L. Pinsker '93 is editorial chair of The Crimson.