EVANSTON—In a rare turn of events, new student Antonio DiMarco actually knows the subject in which he wishes to obtain his degree, making him the first student in the history of Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences to enter the university without the “undecided” tag. “I don’t understand what the big deal is,” DiMarco explained to a group of Medill reporters (who will probably all change their academic focuses before the year’s end), “I’ve always liked philosophy and that’s what I want to study.”

Rumors started swirling over the summer that DiMarco could declare his major before setting foot in Evanston. Even more heads turned when DiMarco posted a topic in the Northwestern 2014 Facebook group: “yo guys any other philosophy majors in da house?!?!?!?” “I didn’t think he could do it,” said WCAS senior Joe DiMarco, Antonio’s brother, “after all, I’ve seen so many eager freshmen try and fail, jabbering on and on excitedly about their engineering career paths only to realize that their schedules will suck. My psych class last year was basically made up entirely of those guys.”

The insanity reached a fever pitch the first day of orientation, as throngs of interested onlookers congregated around the icebreaker for DiMarco’s PA group to hear his long-awaited answer to the question of “Name, Hometown, Major?” They were not disappointed.

DiMarco has said that he enjoys his newfound celebrity, but that being the only freshman who made up his mind also has its drawbacks. “I need to come up with a clever one-liner to use at parties,” he noted, “because I can’t do any of that snarky ‘I’m majoring in undecided!’ stuff.” DiMarco explained that although this particular hill will be hard to climb, he is not worried. “After all,” he said, “I am a philosophy major. It shouldn’t be that hard to come up with some jokes.”