Northwestern University

1. 1 You can go Pass/No Pass through week 8

   You have until Friday of the eighth week to switch a class from a letter grade to P/N, and you make the change yourself in CAESAR. Two catches. It only works for general-education classes and unrestricted electives — not major or minor requirements, and not distribution areas. And the threshold and the cap are set by your school, not the university: in Weinberg a D or better still earns a P, and six units is your lifetime limit.

   Registrar — how to take a course P/N Weinberg — the P/N option
2. 2 Guard The Rock for 24 hours and you get to paint it

   This is the university's own description of it: students guard the Rock for 24 hours to earn the privilege of painting it. Somebody from your group has to physically be there the whole time, overnight included. After that it's yours until the next group outlasts you.

   Northwestern — the history of The Rock
3. 3 SafeRide is free, 7 p.m. to 3 a.m.

   Free to students, every night classes are in session. It runs on Via — log in with your NetID, add your phone number, pick a pickup and a drop-off. The service area runs north to Central St., south to South Blvd./Oakton St., west to Ashland Ave./Green Bay Rd., and east to Lake Michigan. It is not a taxi service and it can pause in bad weather, but on an ordinary night it beats walking home alone.

   Northwestern — Safe Ride
4. 4 Your NetID is a free New York Times

   Northwestern Libraries pays for it. The Times includes News, Audio, Games, Cooking, Wirecutter and The Athletic, plus the archive back to 1851. Register at accessnyt.com, choose "Northwestern University – Evanston, Illinois", and use your Northwestern email address. The Wall Street Journal is a separate free signup at wsj.com/northwestern. One trap: if you already pay for the Times on your Northwestern email, cancel that subscription first or the library one will not attach to your account.

   Register for the New York Times Northwestern Libraries — NYT access Activate the Wall Street Journal
5. 5 A quarter is 10 weeks — upload your syllabi to Gus

   On a quarter system the first midterm arrives while you are still learning where the room is. Upload every syllabus to Gus in week one and every due date lands in one calendar, so nothing depends on you remembering which PDF it was in.

   Try Gus free

One more thing