Hey guys! You know who it is. (Or maybe you don’t. Hi, I’m Cara. Nice to meet you.) Since presumably you’ve all gotten into the college of your dreams (or Iowa State, at least), I thought I’d give you some tips on how to make your dorm room really pop. To make it easier, I’ve outlined themes–just pick the one you like and decorate accordingly! I’ve even included some DIY tips so you can do it on the cheap.

For the wildlife enthusiast: This one is easy–attach a feeder to the front of your car with various kinds of nuts, fruits, and seeds in it. This will attract small animals to your car. Make sure that you drive over them. This allows you to create beautiful, distinguished taxidermy without having to drop thousands of dollars. In addition, flattened rodents don’t take up very much space, and a squirrel-coaster is a great conversation starter. If you’re nervous, don’t think of it as roadkill. Think of it as a successful highway hunting trip. Go out to your local dumpster and search for a feral cat, preferably one that’s as mean, foul-tempered, and pungent as possible. Bring it to school with you, and you now have a poor man’s tiger.

For the party student: You really want the vibe of your room to be “stumbling home at 3 am when you have a chem final the next day.” Don’t make your bed—instead, opt to make a tasteful art-deco statue on your bed with your sheets. Why get a coffee table when you can instead use old pizza boxes that smell like feet and day-old grease? You know what your floor is? A giant walk-on (see what I did there?) closet. Find old, faded photos with your friends and plaster them all over your walls with dirty blue tape. Finally, what room is complete without a bunch of fire- hazard twinkle lights? The only thing that can be neat is your books—you can stack them in an immaculate pile and tell yourself that you will read them eventually.

For the political student: This student will want to buy a series of large, pristine copies of complicated texts from dead white dudes on the nature of government. Start with Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, then get John Locke’s Treatise of Government, then scour the floor for all the Marx you can find. The larger and more conspicuous the titles, the better. Make sure that the books are prominently on display in your room, along with a large poster of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Make no effort to read any of them, but talk a lot about “what the founding fathers intended.” Finally, don’t use a comforter–instead, wrap yourself in the warmth of patriotism with an American flag.