Sarah Morrison + School Cool

Whether you are heading back to middle school, high school, college, grad school, or med school; you need to do it right. If you follow these easy tips, the first week of school should be a breeze. You will have a bunch of cool new friends, a hot edgy boyfriend, and the popular girls' undying jealously for the rest of the year. Good luck girls. And stay in school!

-Back to school shopping is fun. Especially if your mom or student loans are paying. But be careful at the mall. There is a right way to do THIS. Don't buy anything in the window ANYWHERE. Everyone at school will have that stuff. And you want to be the coolest girl at school. Cool girls wear stuff that no one else is wearing. Buy your fashion staples; basic tops, leggings, hoodies, cardigans, and such (at those stores everyone shops at). Buy dresses and other flashy numbers at lesser known stores. And always think while shopping, "Would the popular girls wear this?" If the answer is YES, don't buy it. You want to be cool. And being cool means being cooler than "them."

-Never wear anything brand new the first day of school. I would actually go as far as to say the first week of school. Don't wear entire new outfits. You want to be cool. And cool girls don't try hard. They don't "notice" when it's the first day of ANYTHING. Wear a power outfit. Something you know you look good in. Accessorize it with a new pair of shoes or bag or something from that back to school shopping expedition, we discussed above. Mix in some of your new pieces with old ones. After the first week, start to throw in a new outfit or two, a week. But no more than 2 a week! You are trying to be cool.

-Don't do anything weird. Don't try to cut your bangs the night before school starts. Don't get those rainbow-dollar bill-unicorn acrylics you've always wanted, the weekend before the special day. Don't get a chemical peel or try extracting blackheads from your skin with a pair of tweezers hours before your first class. Don't chop your hair off. Don't wear right-outta-the-package weave hair. Cool girls don't try. You want to look effortless. Save the drastic changes for boredom come October.

-Don't purchase notebooks for every class you are taking. And don't show up to class with all these blank notebooks, with the title of each class written on them in pink Sharpie. One: You MAY change classes. Two: You MAY look retarded. Bring one notebook the first day of school and a pen. Nothing is going to happen the first week anyway. So it's a good time to look extra cool.

-Write stuff you need to know down. Don't be that girl writing down everything the teacher says. Teachers don't teach until at least the second week of school. All the cool kids know that.

-Sit near other cool looking kids in class. Don't talk to them. Just locate yourself in their proximity to them, in case the teacher asks you to pair up or you need to borrow a pen because yours is effortlessly holding your cool casual hair in a bun or something. You are really cool. They will notice this.

-If lockers are applicable to your back to school experience, use them wisely. Sometimes you will be able to pick your locker. Sometimes some adult will assign you one. Eh. No problem. Lockers can easily be switched and moved after the first week. Do not fear if yours has an exceptionally lame location. Use this time to scope out your locker move. Your locker should be somewhere with lots of traffic. Where all the other cool kids walk and will see you. Your locker's location is far more important than whose locker is near yours. Your locker isn't trying to be cool either. It just "is."

-You are too cool to care about lunchroom politics. You and your cool self can totally sit alone. You are THAT cool. Let them come to you. Let them ask if they can sit with you. And if there are no tables open, and you are looking around at that sea of faces panicing; do NOT fear. Pretend you are just walking through. Seem busy. Go eat outside or somewhere else. People will think you were doing something cooler than eating. Pretend you are doing something cooler than eating. PRETEND you are doing something cooler than "them."