What should a freshman know about living in bellingham?

Hi cookie,
you are in the greatest city in the world. I have been living here for more than 10 years and I love it. This is a great place to live if
you love the outdoors, nature, hiking, and the clean cut lifestyle.
People here are nice, friendly and decent. Now if you are a drinker, or troublemaker, you will not like this place.
We have no nightlife, no loud drinking places to go to (Thank God). Most people here spend their time hiking, or down at the ocean rather than drinking in the pubs.
Also don't forget Vancouver B.C. is only an hour away from here. It is a great city to visit. They have nightlife and all the action
you want as a young man.
I hope you will like this great place and have a great time here.

I have more things for you to do than for you not to do :)

Things to do:
 

Do take advantage of everything that Western has to offer, free movie showings, concerts, open mike night, sports, clubs. Don't just sit around in your dorm, pick things that sound interesting to you and you will have a great time!

On that note, it's very easy to get stuck on Western's campus day after day. Bellingham has so much to offer that will definately enrich your experience. Go out to eat sometimes instead of at the dining hall, Bellingham has a wide variety of restaurants, cafes, etc. Make sure you take advantage of all the nice sunny days, not too many of those, and go outside! Walk down to the water, hike, go camping, have a BBQ, head up to the watchtower, are all things to do that are inexpensive and alot of fun. I made the mistake of spending too many days and nights on campus so when I realized how much there was to do, I ran out of time to do it. So start early in september, exploring downtown and fairhaven, getting to know the buses, especially when its nice.

Remember, the buses are your friends, you get a "free" bus pass with your tuition, use it! And make sure that if you go out on sundays, the buses stop running around 7 so dont plan on too late of a night. Also on sunday, the dining halls close at 6:30 and not much else is open, so plan ahead.

I'm drawing a blank now, but welcome to Bellingham and I hope you have a great year :)

Find your way over to Cornwall Park on the north side of town and play some disc golf. It's really addicting. However, if you go on the really sunny days you'll probably be in for a wait, it's gotten really popular. Try an overcast day.

This is completely false.  It's not Wazzu, but there's plenty of places to get liquored up, meet girls and cause trouble.  It's town full of younger people - there's no way getting around that. 

That said, there's a ton of fun stuff to do outside and I'll bet I spend more time outdoors than most people in this town - that's why I moved here and why I'm going to do what I can to not leave after I graduate next quarter. 

Bellingham rocks.  If you eat at SuperMario's and ride baker in the same day, you'll never want to leave.

Uh, okay. I'll take it on faith that you don't make it downtown on the weekends very often, yeah? 

Cookie, there is an incredibly vibrant and bizarre nightlife here for college students, if I may offer a more front-and-center perspective. Our downtown area boasts about five bars per block, the majority of which are wonderfully cheesy and seedy pub-style watering holes featuring loud music, boozy crowds and some of the greatest beers in the Pacific Northwest on tap; in the early days of Autumn and the beginnings of Spring, public urination practically becomes an Olympic past time in the neighborhoods between Sehome and State street, and you're guaranteed to see at least one nose-busting brawl between sauced students on Railroad before last call. 

It's more entertaining than anything, but a fair warning: our "winters" are MURDER. Seriously. September to late April as a general rule, with nothing but grey skies, numbing mid-forties weather and the occasional scattered ray of sunshine. I recommend making keeping some friends on call, sipping plenty of green tea and hitting up the student gym on a semi-regular basis to combat what can be a pretty lousy state of mental affairs. 

I agree with the above posts: Bellingham is BEAUTIFUL. And really easy to explore.

Some tips: Try and buy books from other students/online, and to sell them back that way too! Not only do you save yourself a ton of money, but you'll be helping out others as well. Not that the bookstore isn't a good resource :)

Try not to smoke too much pot in the dorms, or at least be careful about your partying. "They" don't like too much ruckus.(Not from personal experience, haha. I moved out of the dorms early, anyway.)

Bham is a great place to get involved in the community! Check out all the events around the city, including all the get-local fun (farmer's markets, ski-to-sea, etc. Not only is it supporting wonderful place, but you'll probably have a ton of fun doing so!

Now I'm getting back to enjoying one of the prettiest parks in the heart of the city, Boulavard. Definitely need to stop by here a few times ;]

- You don't need a car. The bus system is great. If you do bring a car, be ready to get rides bummed off of you.
- Grades are nice, but the college experience is better (I'm talking about nice safe thing like joining clubs right?...)... (Though, getting involved with different clubs is cool too. ;)) Make sure grades are good, but don't box yourself up studying like hell all the time. Not healthy.
- Spend time by the waterfront.
- Go up to the watch tower.
- Appreciate our out door art on campus (The little green men are my favorite).
- Take advantage of free things. Free shows, free music, free lectures, free food, free condoms...
- Explore both downtown Bellingham and Fairhaven. Great stuff on both sides
-----~Organic maple sugar cotten candy at the farmers market in downtown Bellingham
-----~Katie's Cupcakes (Seriously, a cupcake parlor) in Fairhaven
-----~There are some pretty sweet shops in Fairhaven... like that one hole in the wall record store that has rare records for cheap...
-----~ The Bagelry and Mallards in downtown bellingham
- Pet the bunnies in in the pet store next to the transit center. You know you want to.

Oh, and Western never closes due to snow. True story.

Welcome =)

So I'm gonna put something out there that no one else seems to have elaborated on and that is that living in Bellingham is pretty much the same as living anywhere else, in the sense that once you've been somewhere...well how many coffeehouses do you need to hit up before you realize that they're more or less all the same?  All the returaunts are great and all but when you're spending a ton of money on books, tuition, basic necessities, rent/housing, already you're hardly in a position to eat out on a regular basis.  Also some people here have mentioned the bars and the nightlife but if you're a freshmen and you're 18 you can't do any of that.  It's actually quite hard to find anything to do because even most of the places that have live music at night require ID because they're bars or restaurants that become bars after 7. 

I do however, agree with the statement that you should take full advantage of the bus system.  There really isn't anywhere you can't go in Bellingham that isn't within walking distance of a bus stop and they run at convenient times unless you plan on being out after 10pm or on Sunday. I know so many people that can't or won't use the bus and it makes no sense to me.

To summarize, the city itself is irrelevant, it's all about the people you meet/befriend.

so here's the thing, kid.

part of the experience of bellingham is the discovering of bellingham itself.  i mean, what's the fun of moving to someplace new if you're gonna act like a tourist and ask for the 'best sights and scenes' in quaint ol' b-ham?

i gotta tell ya, bud, its the experiences like discovering that getting the sampler platter at the horseshoe cafe downtown is one of the most amazing things while hammered, and finding out that the watch tower is ideally a sweet first-date scene but then realizing that a couple had already beat you to the punch and was mackin out there already, its finding out things like those for yourself that truely make this homely city your own.

good luck being frosh, have all at it, but don't let ol' "novakk" scare ya off from bham -- i can guarentee you that if you want it to, the booze runs like a cross-country star, and the bud is lit up like the hezbollah got in a new shipment of missles.  like the analogies?

have a good one, cookie monster bro, western will treat you well, but its up for you to decide how the cookie crumbles.

When I lived in the dorms, I hardly ever left campus. And as awesome as campus is, Bellingham is a really great place and I missed out on a lot. It wasn't until grad school that I really got out into the community. 

Here are some suggestions for you... go to Boulevard Park in Fairhaven -- it's my favorite spot in Bellingham, SO beautiful. I like to grab a coffee at Woods and sit by the water. Also, go to Casa Que Pasa downtown, eat a potato burrito (don't ask questions, just try it, they are SO good). Go see movies at the Pickford... they don't have huge blockbusters like you'll find at the Bellis Fair or Sunset theaters, but they have a small theater and interesting movies and it's a really cool local business. Check out the Upfront Theater... it's a comedy club, they have stand up and improv comedy, and every now and then Ryan Stiles (formerly of the Drew Carey Show and Who's Line is it Anyway?) performs with the improv troop.

Also, as some people have said, winters here are killer... but summers make up for it. Summers in Bellingham are totally gorgeous. I highly recommend taking summer quarter classes. They're only 6 or 9 weeks long, so after they're over you still get a couple months of summer, campus is practically deserted and it's usually sunny and nice outside, and the class sizes are really small. I took two summer quarters as an undergrad and I loved it. And then while you're here during the summer, there are lots of awesome things to do... especially fun are free outdoor movies at the Fairhaven Green and live music in the Boundary Bay beer garden. And WWU owns an awesome property on the lake called Lakewood where you can rent kayaks and sailboats and stuff for REALLY cheap with your student ID.

Oh and ditch your umbrellas, and invest in a nice, warm, high quality rain jacket. You will need it desperately. Welcome to Bellingham.

GO TO CLASS. No matter how easy you think a class is, just go to class and take notes. You're paying for it (or maybe your parents are), so it'd be a waste of money to not go; attend your classes and get all you can out of them.

Also, take classes that sound interesting, but make sure you're working towards a major or fulfilling GURs. At least in my major, I have virtually NO room to mess around and take classes just for fun.

That said, DO have fun. Know that just because you're in college doesn't mean you have to drink or smoke pot or go out and party like everyone else. You've been having fun other ways the past 18 years, just because you're older doesn't make that stuff less fun. Just less "cool."

Get involved, take advantage of the events and clubs and such the school and Bellingham has to offer.

Make friends! If you came here with a bunch of people from your hometown, branch out. You can keep your old friends, but make new ones, too.

Get yourself a good rain jacket. You'll need it.

If you're in the dorms, just learn the RA's schedule for their rounds at night and you'll never have to worry about your party getting busted. You can drink and cause all the trouble you want and as long as nobody calls and complains you'll be good.

Thanks everyone.  I have read, and appreciate everyones input.  Just from reading this I have learned alot.

Does anyone know how much a season pass is to baker?

http://mtbaker.us/prices/season-passes
The Baker website doesn't have prices for the '09/'10 season up yet, but they have last seasons still, which is $655.39 for a college student taking 12+ credits. I'm not sure, but some ski areas have discounts if you buy before the season starts, so you might want to check back in the fall to see if Baker does that. Before you buy a season pass though, you probably want to do the math and see if it's worth it. Even with the discounted college pass (compared to a normal $725 adult pass), you have to go something like 15 times just to break even compared to the daily weekend ticket price.