College Slang

Now that you are an ESL student in New York City, you are a part of your college community. As any other subculture, college has its unwritten rules, laws and a specific lingo - a great deal of student terms and expressions that you’d want to get familiar with. An interesting fact about college slang is that while it changes over time, most of it is a long-accepted ritual talk that students have been using for generations. So here’s what you need to know to be able to talk to your college buddies.

• When you do very well on your test, you can proudly tell all your friends that you aced it.
• If you are going to a movie instead of attending a class, which we strongly advise against, you are blowing it off.
• If your classmate does not know anything, you can safely call him clueless (but probably not to his face).
• If you’ve been planning to skip a difficult class intentionally, you are cutting it (again, not a good idea).
• If your classmate keeps complaining about too much work in a group project, just tell him to deal with it.
• If you are fine with your friend dating your ex-girlfriend, you are down with that (hey, that’s life, right?).
• If you drink too much at a party, which, again, we strongly advise against, you are hammered (really, not a good idea).
• If your paper was written in a rush and the best you can hope to get for it is a C, then it is lame! (we’ve said it before – not a good idea!)
• If you can’t help your classmate with his assignment, just tell him “no can do.” He will understand (hopefully).
• If your friends ask you how you are and things are fine, you can tell them that everything is just peachy (we do not recommend using it at the job interviews, though).
• Are you happy? Yes? Then you are stoked!
• If you daydream in your algebra class, then you are zoned out.