Welcome to university, Young Nerd. This is your time to shine.

Your decision to attend one of this country's venerable Institutes of Higher Learning and Occasional Consumption of Grain-Derived Ethanol Products wasn't merely the choice to further your education and improve your career prospects.

No, Young Nerd - by choosing to attend university, you have elected to spend the next four to n years (where n is any non-negative real number) in the company of fellow nerds, where you are free to be your geeky self. You have found your people. You have joined the pack. You are Nerd, and you are Strong.

I am Nerd, too. I will be your dorky and slightly clumsy guide to all things Nerd on this website, a position for which I am eminently qualified.

I hold 2.5 degrees, the geekiest of which is a PhD in the field of bioinformatics, which, on the Venn diagram of scientific disciplines, represents the union of biology and computer science. I have published on topics ranging from the immunomodulatory effects of commensal bacteria on the host immune system to kernel methods for the separation of non-linearly-separable vector-based data. I have five computers running three different operating systems, have been spun around in a human centrifuge, know my genotype at my caffeine response locus, and my favourite joke involves a speeding physicist and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Yup. I'm a nerd. And I've been one ever since I popped out of the womb, graphing calculator in hand.

While the Nerd Baby years generally pass uneventfully, it is a sad and universal truth that as childhood progresses, the Young Nerd is generally ostracized by its peers. We spend our youths sitting alone at the front of the school bus, crying tiny nerd tears as we weather a continuous rain of spitballs issued forth by the cool kids sitting behind us.  We eat our lunch alone, save for the brief moments of companionship afforded by a cool kid pausing to rummage through our lunch bags on a cookie-stealing mission. We play alone on the playground, spending countless hours absorbed in that loneliest of games, Solo Tetherball.

University, however, changes all of that. Here, you are among equals. Look over there! It's the kid that was too clumsy to tie his shoelaces until 8^th grade but could name every dinosaur ever by the end of kindergarten!  Hey - there's the misunderstood drama geek! And wait! You're surrounded by hordes of other nerds who still haven't been kissed! Yes, Young Nerd, you have found your spiritual home.

When the high school guidance counsellor sat you down for a chat after they released you from a locker-stuffing and told that one day it'd be okay; that one day you'd rise above your peers and fears to spread your wings and fly? Well, despite the fact that they were most likely just parroting some nuggets off a faded motivational poster on their wall, they were actually right.

I have spent the last 12 years of my life on university campuses across Canada, and not once have I heard of any incident bearing even the most passing of resemblances to the nightmares we nerds faced daily as children.

There have been no recorded incidents of cliques of Anthropology majors lurking in the recesses of the library, waiting to slam a copy of Franz Boas' "The Mind of Primitive Man" into the bespectacled face of a passing student. No reports of roving packs of Philosophers exploring the concepts of The Other and The Absurd through random de-pantsings. No tales of English majors scrawling bathroom graffiti exquisitely detailing your sexual inexperience in iambic pentameter. 

No, the university campus is generally free from the mind games and psychological torture so characteristic of high school. I attribute this to the fact that the small-mindedness that impels our childhood tormentors towards a youth spent honing their Swirlie and Wedgie skills is mutually exclusive vis à vis the desire to better oneself through the acquisition of worldly knowledge.

This hypothesis is borne out by research I undertook into the current pursuits of some of my own childhood tormentors. One girl enjoyed nothing more than snatching whatever Choose Your Own Adventure I was absorbed in at the time out of my hands and flinging it into the farthest possible puddle/corner/wasp-riddled shrub. A quick Google search reveals that she now appears to belong to a local Charismatic Christian sect, one of those that believes in things like prophecy and frequently mistakes a woman's uterus for a clown car.

Another young "lady" would frequently sit behind me on the school bus and noogie me with such ferocity that a veritable snow globe of dandruff would be created, a phenomenon to which she would then loudly draw everyone's attention. My investigation reveals that while she now appears to be a functioning member of society, she has a penchant for posing for photos whilst clutching a rifle and standing on front of big game.

I have yet to track down her partner in crime, however - a girl who I remember as being the size of a moose, with a bellow to match. I can only imagine that she is somehow associated with a women's prison, though whether it is in the capacity of inmate or matron I know not.

It was only when university began and I left my tormentors behind that I was at last able to trade my fears of ridicule and embarrassment at the hands of my peers for more pedestrian worries, like whether my lab safety goggles were going to leave a permanent red mark on my face. I was finally in a place where I could wear my geekdom like a badge, and indeed my four years as undergrad saw me rise to a position of campus-wide Nerdfame, along with my merry band of fellow dorks.

As Nerd Girl, I shall endeavour to bring you tales from campus nerd-dom past and present. This column will explore the social and mating behaviours of the campus nerd, tell stories of great nerds of history, and share stories from the sublime to the ridiculous. This is your story, Nerds!