By AMANDA PELL

COLUMNIST

It’s a new year and, as always, everyone is setting freshly unattainable goals for themselves. If you insist on resolutions, here are some suggestions for slightly more feasible intentions:

1. Make a new friend. After freshman year, it can be tough to venture beyond the clique. Join a new club, or start volunteering (Fordham now offers a “Sandy Saturday” program to help clean up hurricane damage, which I highly recommend). You never know what you might get out of a little change.

2. Say hello to security guards/cafeteria workers/Fordham employees. This one drives me absolutely nuts. Too many times I have watched someone throw a fit because they did not have the McGinley door held open for him or her, only to then proceed into the Caf without so much as a word to Nancy. And Nancy is wonderful. Truly. Remember that the employees who work here are people too, and they deserve the same courtesy we expect from others.

3. Try not to use social networking as an excuse to be a horrifying human being. My apologies to the dead horse I am about to beat here, but, Ann Coulter, guys. Regardless of the outcome, the undeniable truth is that the Facebook arguments brought out the worst in otherwise reasonable, intelligent people. My personal favorite was a conservative individual who decided to assert in his blazingly witty argument that all liberal females were exceptionally unattractive.

Um, no! In the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “Insulting a woman’s looks when they have nothing to do with the issue at hand implies…an inability to engage in high-level thinking. You may think she’s ugly, but everyone else thinks you’re an idiot.” Similarly, liberals, not all conservatives are gun-wielding time-travelers from the year 1770. Don’t treat them that way, and don’t say things on the Internet you would not say in person.

4. By the same token, try to stay abreast of the relevant issues. It is not okay to remain ignorant of what is going on in the world around you. Read a book. Pick up a newspaper.

Even if you’re only in school to marry a Gabelli grad and live out your days in luxury, the least you can do is make sure you’ll be an entertaining date. You know, one who does not have to work back every conversation to Twitter parody accounts.

5. Okay, fine. Exercise. It’s clichéd, but the truth is that we all have access to newly-renovated, state-of-the-art gym equipment; take advantage of it while it’s still free (or at least included in tuition)!

When you graduate, and you’re poor and starving, and you have to run on actual pavement for exercise, you will regret not using what Fordham offers. And I am told you’ll feel better, or have more energy or something. I don’t really know, but give it a try.