Hello, dearies! This public service announcement may find you during a vulnerable time, a.k.a. the post-comp period. And, if that’s the case, I’m here to tell you that everything will be okay. My qualifications? Other than having also been weeded out from comps each semester and being a year older than those of you who are freshmen, nothing! However, considering I’m pretty good at giving relationship advice (at least that’s what I’d like to believe…) as someone who has been single for all her life, I’m guessing the same logic could apply here.

1. You are not a sheep.

So don’t be one. Or at least be a neon rainbow sprinkle goat in a sea of vanilla fluff. Let’s be real here, would you actually like consulting? Here’s another question—do you even know what it is? (I mean this in the least condescending way possible, because I’m probably in the same boat as you). Being a sheep is boring. Go do something else. Volunteer! In a flock of sheep that’s surrounded by grass, not many bother to actually touch it. That doesn’t mean that you should be like that too.

2. Start your own club.

C’mon, I bet you did that in high school (s/o to you non-profit leaders). You’ve got what it takes. In fact, this is your chance to subject your future compers to the same brutal grind and devastation that you went through. Create a culinary club with a four-month-long comp, MasterChef style. You can even take out all that pent-up rage on your compers like Gordon Ramsey on MasterChef. If he can yell like that, I don’t see a reason why you can’t too.

Alternatively, create, oh I don’t know, a mushroom foraging club. Compers who make it are the ones who don’t fall ill from an innocent-looking puffball. (Why work when you can let nature do it for you?) Or, if you’d rather be a sheep and follow the flock but frolic on your own for a bit, you can start another consulting club. HUBSEBCG is going to be the next big thing on campus. That’s none other than the Harvard Undergraduate Behavioral Sustainable Energy and Bioethics Consulting Group, duh. Rolls right off the tongue.

3. Go no contact.

This shouldn’t be too hard. I mean, y’all barely got past a talking stage. (I hope you didn’t get too attached…but if you did, now you know what not to do next time!) Also, can we ask ourselves why we’d want someone who doesn’t want us? You don’t deserve that. Cut that toxicity out of your life—unfollow that Instagram, don’t think about the org, unsubscribe from that annoying mailing list, and don’t even think about comping it again.

However, to use some of my favorite corporate lingo, sometimes circling back does lead to unexpected success stories, so I guess you never know with second chances. I’ll leave that for you to judge.

4. You are literally living on a floating rock.

Clubs are just a social construct! At the end of the day, you are just existing on a rock chilling somewhere in the big, beautiful, infinite galaxy. That club means nothing to the universe, and, in the long run, it won’t matter to your universe either. In ten years, the silly club will matter far less than your darling Dalmatian, Pepper. Just wanted to put things in perspective, because I know comp season can get some of us feeling a little existential.

5. And on that rock, you go to a place called Harvard.

Roses are red, violets are blue, there’s always a fellow Harvard kid better than you. That’s okay! Everyone’s cracked, and that doesn’t mean you aren’t too. Ultimately, it’s important to remember that when you go to school with some of the most brilliant and talented fruits cherry-picked from across the world, you’re going to be mingling with some pretty sweet competition! All this to say, don’t take comp results personally. You’re going to go on and do amazing things, with or without that club.

There, I’d said my piece. I don’t want to see any tears shed during comp season. I’m a huge proponent of feeling the feels, but spare those precious pearls for something else. A situationship, a HUDS-induced stomachache, literally anything else. College flysby, and the last thing you need is to be bogged down by a comp-induced heartbreak. Now, if you will, allow me to skedaddle off to Berryline and brain-freeze my rejections away <3