Starting your freshman year? Here’s some advice from the book “How to Survive Your Freshman Year” (Hundreds of Heads Books, $13.95), straight from people who’ve done it:

“I lived in dorms for the first two years. I lived in an all-girl dorm, and for the first two weeks, everyone was happy. But then we all started getting our periods at the same time, and everyone became bitchy all together. It was terrible. And the dorm was filthy. You’d think an all-girl dorm would be clean, but girls are definitely dirtier than guys. Our bathroom was disgusting. And the end of the year was ridiculous — we had garbage cans spilling into the hallways. Living off campus now is like a slice of heaven.”

“I lived off campus. It was a hard transition. I had to take the bus every day to classes and I was away from the social life on campus. Taking the bus was a pain in the …; I had to get up an hour before class in the morning. And going to parties on campus was a pain, because buses didn’t run that late at night.”

“Living at home and going to school isn’t bad at all. It’s fine with me, I mean, college rooms are pretty small, and I wake up early enough to beat the traffic.”

“I lived in a co-op my first year, so I wasn’t pampered by the dorms. It’s chaos 100 percent of the time, but it’s worth it. It’s about self-sufficiency. We don’t go to the army after high school, like they do in Israel. Here we go to college, so here is where we need to learn independence, develop a thick skin, and learn how to balance life.”

“Dorms are a good place if you can deal with living in a box with another person.”

Hundreds of Heads Books’ survival guides offer the wisdom of the masses by assembling the experiences and advice of hundreds of people who have gone through life’s biggest challenges and have insight to share.