Now that you are in college, you replace blowing out candles at the local skating rink with taking Fireball shots at the downtown bar. Birthdays take a 180 turn when you are in college.

In your younger years, birthdays were announced over the speaker at school and everyone knew it was your birthday. Your parents were the first ones to say happy birthday to you in the morning and you plan a pool party with invitations. In college, people in school don't know it is your birthday, let alone your name.

In college, there is so much hype. You start a month early counting down the days and when it finally comes, half of the people don’t even know it is your birthday until they check Facebook. There are so many things to do that it is hard to make sure you see everyone, or you are not able to make it out at night after celebrating all day.

Weekday birthdays are the worst, too. They aren’t bad because you cannot go out -- they are bad because you have classes. Nothing says happy birthday like an 8 a.m. marketing class or a three-hour chem lab. Also, no one wants to go out on a Monday or Tuesday, especially after a crazy weekend.

Your 21st  birthday is the only one that matters. The birthdays before are just a tease. But once it comes, it is the best day. You can finally go to that bar where the older people get mad if you go when you are underaged. But after your 21st birthday, there are no more good ones to look forward to.

But, of course, your birthday is the best day. All the attention is on you. It is the best feeling to wake up to the birthday texts ranging from long paragraphs about how much they love you or the awkward “hbd” text from an ex. It only happens once a year, so live it up.

Whatever birthday it is, there is definitely a common theme: you will most likely be intoxicated, and will do a few things that you will regret in the morning. But don’t worry, “it was my birthday” is a valid excuse you can use to make up for the hideous things you did the night before. It is a whole day where anything goes. But make sure you take advantage of it because once you get older, it is probably not going to be socially acceptable to get ridiculously hammered, ask random people to crowd surf you and get kicked out of the bar.