I love the first month back at GW. I love that everyone still has their summer tans, that for the first two weeks I actually do all my readings and that the kids smoking outside of Gelman have fresh new back-to-school cigarette packs. And of course, who doesn’t love seeing that first EMeRG van of the season parked outside of Thurston Hall?

But the main reason why I love this month has less to do with new school supplies and more to do with a new atmosphere. Sexual atmosphere, that is. Yes, you read correctly, I love back-to-school month at GW because now, more than ever, college hormones are a-ragin’.

I am referring, of course, to those classic, awkward, “what-was-I-thinking?” back-to-school hookups, consistent only in their sheer and utter randomness. You’re at a frat party the first weekend back or you’re hanging out in a friend’s residence hall, and one thing leads to another, and, well, you get some.

The start-of-the-school-year-hookup is something that, surprisingly enough, quite a few people seem to be ashamed of. For whatever reason, they feel it was super weird, they don’t know why it happened and they think it got them off to a wrong start for the year. It’s understandable to feel some sense of shame or guilt because you acted on primal urges without thinking twice. And if this was October, you’d be right to hang your disheveled head down during the appropriately titled walk of shame. But this month was practically designed for the random hookup.

Think about it logically: you probably don’t know their name and you’ll probably never see them again anyway. Now I suppose if you hooked up with everyone on your floor you might need to put the mojo on the backburner. However, chances are you haven’t, so just de-tag the awful Facebook picture of you and your lucky partner and turn that frown upside down.

The back-to-school hookup isn’t a shameful thing – it is as common as Manoush at 3 a.m. We must embrace this GW tradition, celebrate it even. This is the 21st century and we are college students, not Puritans! In fact, what better month to hook up than September, at the beginning of the semester, while you still have the time? We are young and in college, so I say forget whatever awkwardness may or may not ensue with your study buddy from last semester’s statistics class and have fun while you can.

Now folks, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about the back-to-school hookup. Take my hypothetical friend “Jill,” a major supporter of the September hookup. Jill went about the back-to-school hookup the wrong way. Her philosophy was that you know you had a great first week back if you have an extremely awkward, diseased second week with maybe a pregnancy scare or two.

Jill went a little overboard last year. She got into the double digits hookup-wise before the second week of school. She missed a class only to then see her professor on the walk back to her dorm room later that morning. By the end of that first week, she had slept in other beds more than she had slept in her own. This of course is not what I’m advocating. While I admire Jill’s. stamina, her actions were irresponsible at best and a serious public health hazard at worst.

So keep a couple things in mind when embarking on any conquests this September. First, have your fun but limit yourself to one, maybe two, late night trysts. There is a fine line between harmless fun, and well, a not-so-harmless problem. Also, it’s the back-to-school hookup, not the Great Amazing STD Race. You are not invincible and if you love it, glove it.

And of course, the usual hookup rules still apply. Don’t hook up with your next-door neighbor, text your roommate in advance and let him/her know there will be a special guest over, leave emotions at the door, etc. Doing this will ensure that you have a fantastic, guilt-free hookup and will temporarily assuage that crazy college libido. So go get ’em tiger.

Think about it this way. In the very least, you’ll have a glow than even the best summer tan can’t beat.

-The writer is sophomore majoring in political communication and history.