3 Questions To Ask Yourself About Your Study Habits

What is studying, anyway? Maybe you’d never actually ask that question out loud: After all, you’re not a freshman, anymore. But the further you burrow into higher education, the more painfully you may realize the inadequacies of your study skills.

While you don’t necessarily have to be sitting upright at a desk in a quiet room in order to study properly, there are definitely a few key characteristics of good studying.

Is your mind actively engaged? Staring absently at your class notes or listening to recorded lectures while rehearsing the argument you had with your bestie last week will do you about as much good as sleeping on your text book.

Maybe you can study where there’s background noise—or maybe you can’t. Maybe you can focus on class material while hanging out with a friend—or maybe you can’t. There’s really not a right-or-wrong posture or setting for effective studying to take place, but there is probably a situation that works best for you—and many that don’t.

You’re an individual, and you need to get to know your own propensities and limitations. Then, you need to be honest with yourself about your ideal study setting and make it happen.

Are you properly motivated? The whole self-discipline thing is hard enough, when you’re motivated to achieve. But if you aren’t, the cards are stacked against you. Will an “A” in the class secure your place on the dean’s list? Will it help you qualify for a scholarship, grant, or other financial aid? Maybe that kind of over-arching motivation just isn’t enough.

I once heard it said that “an adult is one who parents himself.” Part of parenting includes doling out punishments and rewards. If you don’t study well for the 2-hour block you’ve carved out, will you still let yourself go watch the basketball game tonight? If you really work hard, will you earn a latte after the game?

You need to find something that works for you, again combining self-awareness and self-discipline. If you’re not up to honing those two skills, then you’re lacking more than study skills— you’re miles from maturity.

Can you rehearse the material, blind? Do you remember your first keyboarding or computer class, where you learned to type? Once you learned where all the keys were and which fingers to use for which keys, you probably had to take “blind typing tests.”

The idea was that if you could type without looking at the keys, you had a mastery of your newly found skill.

The same is true with any material. If you really know it, you should be able to rehearse it mentally, without prompts. You could make up flash cards or have a friend who’s in the same class (or has taken it before) ask you about general topics, but until you can go over the information in your head, you really haven’t quite studied enough.

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Things You Want To Do On Campus But Probably Shouldn’t

Drum roll … Here’s another one of our wacky and zany top ten lists. How about “10 Crazy Things You Could Do on a College Campus But Probably Shouldn’t Try” or, to put it on a more academic note, how about “10 Alternative Purposes for a College Campus.” You’ve always associated with college with long lectures, boring teachers, and textbooks filled with minuscule print.

The towering brick building is filled with classrooms where you’ve spent hours on end trying to focus on the current class and not all the projects you have to work on for your other classes.

Of course, if you’re like the average students, your mind starts wandering freely about halfway through class. You think about playing paintball in the hallways of a classroom building at night, sliding down the curving banisters in the library, and diving into the fountain pool.

Keep your thinking gears turning! Because we’ve got the top ten wacky and crazy ideas coming.

Here are some crazy ways to put that college campus to work for you:

1. Bungee Jumping - Hook bungee cords to all of the tallest buildings on campus and get ready to jump off and hang on. If you’re in an extremely daring mood, try swinging from one cord to another and making your way around campus.

(Disclaimer: My lawyer wanted me to add three pages of fine print to the end of this blog post. Basically, if you’re crazy enough to try any of these ideas – or any other ideas I blog about – you’re crazy enough to know you’re the only one responsible. So no pointing the thumb at me!)

2. Drag Racing Cone off the main roads and get together all the people with the fastest sports cars. Line up and see how fast everyone can go. You know you’ve always wanted to burn out on the pavement without the campus police catching up to you.

3. Massive Paintball War - Turn several buildings on campus into areas to hide and run around with paintball guns. Duck behind the president’s desk, participate in a shootout in a science lab as you watch test tubes shatter everywhere, or run around the main auditorium gunning down the other team.

4. Food Fight - Ask the dining hall staff to save food they would normally throw away. Bag up tomatoes, jello, soup, and any other food that makes for messy projectiles.

Line up two teams inside the dining hall and set up tables and chairs as barricades. Then, fire away!! Just don’t wear your favorite shirt like I did.

5. Fountain Diving - Make a big splash all over campus! Pull on your swim trunks and goggles and get ready to dive into every single fountain on campus! Maybe even make a relay race out of the event. You might want to pick a warm day for this activity. Believe me, it’s no fun at 17 degrees!

6. Building Climbing - Get together a bunch of climbing gear—rappelling hooks, ropes, harnesses, and of course Clif bars to replenish your carb needs. Scale your way up the tallest buildings around campus. And, if you’re up for the risk and the fun, try climbing up a few brick walls without any tools. You may have to sign a liability form before attempting said crazy act, however.

7. Zoo Rent a few wild animals from the local zoo for a day. Let them roam free around campus for a true safari experience. This could even make a very valuable social experiment for a psychology class. Who wouldn’t enjoy driving in for class and seeing a lion in the road roaring and shaking its mane? Or a monkey jumping on top of the car and pounding on the window?

8. Movie Theater Plan to project the latest movies on big screens in all of your college’s largest auditoriums. Let people take a break from classes for a day to watch their favorite movies. Lord of the Rings marathon, anyone?

9. Reality Show Instead of just watching a show, your college campus could actually be a show. Surely a few teachers are quirky enough to provide entertainment on a reality show. Cameras could follow you around from class to class and back to your dorm at night. Now if only you could get some kind of grade bonus for submitting to a project like this.

10. Plain Old, Boring School Sigh…that’s why you’re in college. To get an education, to graduate, and to hopefully find a job. So focus back on that lecture, and stop daydreaming, at least until class finishes.

Dudes, thanks again for taking part in yet another College Top Ten List! And, as always, keep those comments coming. If you’ve got a brainier or crazier idea than the ones we’re scraping our brain cells to come up with, please jot it down and leave it for us in electronic bloggin’ comment form. We love the feedback and we live for it!

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Best Ways To Maximize Space in Your College Dorm Room

Saving Space in Your Dorm Room  could sometimes be a hard task. It’s a tough transition to move from your nice, comfy room at home to the tight quarters of a dorm room at college.

Not only are the rooms small, but freshmen are typically doubled, which means they have another person, a roommate, living with them in the same room.

However, colleges are now accepting so many more students that if you don’t send in your acceptance letters by a specific deadline, you’re probably going to be tripled!

 Yes, that means you now have two roommates squeezed in with you instead of one. 

Either way, whether you’ve got one roommate or two, you’re going to need to know the best ways to save space in your cramped college dorm room. 

Space Saver #1  Under the bed storage is going to be your best bet when it comes to saving space. Before you even move in, check with the school to see if bed risers are allowed in rooms.

If they’re not, ask if the beds can manually be elevated to the height of your preference.

Normally, the bed can be raised up and down between two distinct heights. 

Now that your bed is at your desired height, you should have oodles of space to put stackable tubs underneath.

The clothes that don’t fit into your closet are going to have to be put into the tubs under the bed.

Food, blankets, shoes, and laundry baskets will also all have a perfect little storage place under your bed.

Space Saver #2  Storing clothes in the teeny, tiny dorm room closets is always a major ordeal, especially for the students that overpack.

Everyone has clothes that have to be hung up, so make sure you invest in space-saving hangers that have multiple rows.

This allows you to hang pants, jeans, skirts, and scarves, all on one hanger. The more pieces of clothing that you can get onto one hanger, the better! 

For girls with lots of small accessories, you can also buy jewelry organizers that can hang in your closet so that you have extra desk or dresser space.

Space Saver #3  Another good idea to consider is putting your toiletries (and makeup, for girls) in a small, desk-sized 3-drawer organizer.

These are the perfect size to fit your deodorant, hair products, perfume/ cologne, makeup, and other necessities in an organized, compact space. 

Then you can stack another 3 drawer organizer on top that is filled with pens, pencils, sharpies, note cards, post-its, and other office supplies.

These little organizers are a great way to maximize the small amount of desk and counter space you’re going to have in your room.

Space Saver #4  If you’re planning on having a TV in your room, it’s really practical to get a tall, open TV stand. You can put the TV, DVD player on top, along with DVDs and CDs.

Below, you can place your microwave, refrigerator, toaster, and any other devices you may have brought with you. This is a great way to situate multiple products in one small area.

And because these items will constitute most of your electric needs, having them all in one place will ensure that you don’t have extension cords running across your room in every direction.

Space Saver #5  The most important space-saving tip I can offer you is to communicate with your roommate before move in day! If you don’t talk about who is bringing what, then you could both end up bringing the same exact items. And dorm rooms are much too small for two mini fridges.

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Best Ways To Submit Your Homework On Time

Getting homework done on time and submitting same is always every good students dream, and there is this old saying of “The dog ate my homework” which has long been replaced by “my computer failed me” which is now the #1 excuse used by students who fail to have their coursework done on time.

Of course, it’s more than just a lame excuse—it really does happen.

Thus, many professors wisely display this disclaimer in or near their offices: “Lack of planning on your part will not constitute an emergency on my part.” Ouch.

But we all know that even when technology does fail, there’s something we could have done to protect ourselves from losing all our valuable research, writing, design, or other project work.

What can—and should—you do to be prepared?

1. Save, save, save, and save again! First, make sure to manually save any document or file once you begin working on it. Name it in a way that makes sense to you, and place it in a file folder.

(I’d recommend having a file folder for each class, per semester, at the very least. Perhaps you could save a shortcut to the current semester’s folder on your desktop.)

Even if you have an auto-save function enabled, make sure to manually save your work regularly, especially after you’ve just input a lot of work into the project.

2. Back up your files! This is definitely one of those times when you don’t want to be like most people: More than half of us fail to back up files regularly, and a surprising 32% of Americans back up their data only once per year, if that.

When you’re investing hours in a huge project that will determine your grade for a semester-long class, you can’t afford to take risks.

One way to back up your files is to use a thumb drive, also called a USB flash drive. These devices are available at discount prices, and they can attach conveniently to your keychain, lanyard, backpack, or other item that you tend to keep with you.

In addition, flash drives come in a wide variety of sizes, from 2GB to 500GB. As far as quality goes, one significant designation is speed; you should look for a device that has more than 3 Mb per second, in order to ensure that your drive has a lifespan of cycles long enough to save and delete many files.

3. Back up your files, again! Saving your files in a second location is a good idea, but regularly backing up your entire computer is best.

Because most of us are just plain forgetful, it’s best to sign up for a highly rated online backup service such as Google Drive, Crashplan and Mozy and a host of other reliable once.

If you’re Apple obsessed, then upgrade your iCloud backup to one of their larger fee based plans to ensure you have enough backup capacity. You can sign up for automatic backups that securely save your files online weekly, daily, or even more often than that.

Some services will allow you to access all backed-up files from any mobile device.

In the world of technology, malfunctions are pretty much as constant as upgrades and new innovations.

Plan for it, and you won’t have to grovel, hoping for mercy at the red-pen-wielding hands of your professors.

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College Hidden Costs To Consider

There's more than just college tuition you and your parents have to worry about. Financial aid helps by paying for your actual tuition, but there are other costs that the college doesn't include. Among those are the cost of books, food, entertainment and travel.

If you're planning to take a semester abroad you're adding some more costs to your college education. After a while, the bills really start to rack up. Here are a couple tips on how to make paying for everything a little bit easier.

Getting a Job
Working a part-time job while you're in college is actually a really practical and useful idea. A lot of colleges actually offer on-campus employment opportunities. Most of these jobs are relatively simple and the pay is often more than minimum wage.

The hours are flexible and the best part is that you don't even need to leave campus. Say you take a job as a desk clerk who checks ID's as students enter into a building. This job pays you to just sit there and do practically nothing. Couldn't you be doing homework while working? Of course!

You also have the option of finding off-campus employment. This can be a problem for some students since they have no mode of transportation.

However, if you're in the city or have a car this will definitely work for you. The jobs available are numerous and industries vary from place to place, but you are likely to find something to suit your fancy.

Travel
Getting from home to college can be expensive, especially if you're going to school on the other side of the country. If that's the case, you will most likely be traveling by air or train.

A couple web sites you might want to try out are, Priceline.com and Travelocity. ISEcard.com is another organization that provides discounts on travel, accommodations, and entertainment for students.

Entertainment
Going to clubs, bars, movies and concerts can be expensive. Most colleges offer tons of events for their students, it's just a matter of finding out what they are. Check to see if the school you're going to has a schedule of all the on-going events for the month. You'll be surprised at how much there is to do, all for free!

Food
If you aren't eating the school's food, you're spending money out of your own pocket to eat. It is a necessity for any college student to have a mini-refrigerator and a microwave in his or her dorm room.

If you have that, you should definitely go grocery shopping to stock up on goods. Ramen noodles are an excellent snack that cooks easily in a microwave. Also, if your dorm is equipped with a full kitchen (check in the basement), make use of it.

Gather a group of your friends together, plan a meal, get the ingredients, split the cost and cook it up. You'd be surprised at how cheap cooking your own food is.

Books
This is the one thing that surprises all college students, the price of textbooks. Your professor gives your class a list of about 5 books you need to buy. Later that night you go to the school bookstore and find out that you need to spend $700!

If you end up buying them brand new, most schools have a buy back day near the end of the year where they'll buy your used textbooks. If you don't have that money to begin with, try checking out the used textbook section.

You'll find that the books there are in pretty good shape and might even have some helpful notes taken by the previous owner.

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Hot Advice On Student Loans

Sticker shock isn't limited to cars. It applies to the money you will need for college student loans. Since the 60's the cost of a college education has increased almost nine fold.

The first thing to remember about a student loan, that it really is not an expense, it is an investment, in yourself. A college education can lead to a more rewarding job and greater earning capability throughout your career. Studies estimate that you will earn 80% more over your life with a college degree versus a high school diploma.

Student Loan Steps to Follow
To determine how much money you will need for a college, and subsequently a student loan, follow these steps:

Pick A College: Find the college that is right for you.

Tuition And Fees: You can use our site to research all the tuition and fees for colleges and universities in the US.

Determine Related College Expenses. Be sure to include travel to and from school, college text books, room and board, college tuition, personal expenses, etc.

Calculate The Money You Have Saved For College:

Determine Your Income: Or your parents income if they are going to help you with a student loan. But, if you plan to work during school, estimate your earnings.

Go To Class: You must maintain at least half-time enrollment, which generally is six credit hours.

Receive And Review Your SAR: The Student Aid Report arrives about one month after you submit the FAFSA. Your SAR includes your "Expected Family Contribution" or EFC, which your school will use to determine your eligibility for various types of aid, including student loans.

With the above information you are ready to apply online for a student loan.

Student Loan Tips

Investigate And Understand: Do thorough research as not all student loans are the same. Some interest rates may vary, the time frame to pay pack your student loan will depend on the program, grace periods and penalties for late payments also vary.

Manage Your Student Loan: Watch your mail and pay attention to deadlines. If you have questions contact the the lender for the student loans or the college coordinating the information. Be sure to attend all required Entrance and Exit Sessions.

Understand Your Student Loan Requirements: You must complete loan counseling sessions when you first obtain a student loan and upon graduation. These sessions detail your rights and responsibilities as a student loan borrower.

Pay The Piper: If you can, pay interest on any unsubsidized loans. The small payments you make will reduce your overall debt so your total to payback will be lowered.

Go To Class: You must maintain at least half-time enrollment, which generally is six credit hours.

Investigate Tax Savings: Your tax advisor may be able to determine if you qualify for tax credits, such as the Hope or Lifetime Learning Credit.

Stay In Touch: Keep your lender advised as to your address changes. It is not their fault if you move and forget to tell them. If you are late on payments, it can impact your credit.

Types Of Student Loans

Financial Need Student Loans - Subsidized Stafford Loans: This loan has a low interest rate and is from the federal government for students with financial need. Interest doesn't begin accruing until after you begin repayment.

Non-Financial Need Student Loans - Unsubsidized Stafford Loans: Similar to the subsidized loan, but not based on financial need. Interest begins accruing while you're in school.

Federal PLUS (Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students): A Federal PLUS is not based on financial need of the student. Parents of undergraduate students can apply — regardless of family income or financial assets.

Private Loans: There are companies and banks that provide private student loans for both undergraduate and graduate students. Only borrow what you need as the interest rates on these student loans are often higher.

Home Equity Loans And Lines Of Credit: A home equity loan or line of credit is one way for homeowners to pay for your college education. A possible advantage is tax deductible interest.

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