Advising Week

Every semester, before a new semester begins, your school has Advising Week or Advising Day. This is your chance to sit down with your advisor and evaluate where you are in your program, and figure out what classes you need to take in order to graduate on time. Don't blow this off! If I wouldn't have met with my advisor, I'd be totally screwed. I transfered schools and a lot of my credits didn't transfer, but my advisor was able to over-ride a lot of my classes which allowed me to take certain classes that had prerequisites that I normally would not have been able to take. He also helped me put a perspective on what I needed to get done to get done with school on time. If it wasn't for him, I would not be able to graduate this Spring and attend Viterbo next Fall. Thankfully, he steered me in the right direction and I'm ready to accept my Associate Degree and head off to start my Bachelor's.

Books

One essential part of college are your text books. What you may not have been told, is that your books can be rather expensive! My semester, first year, of college I spend $850 on my textbooks! I later found on that I could have gone to HalfBooks.com and gotten them waaaaaay cheaper. The next year that I purchased my books, I used Halfbooks.com to buy all my books, rather than purchasing them at the college book store, and I only spent $300 on books. BIG difference, especially for a struggling college student. So for future reference, search around a bit before you buy your books. You can get used books that are in mint condition, for half or less of the price of it brand new in the store. You can use HalfBooks.com, Google, Amazon and more to search.

Freshman 5

Your Freshman year of college usually isn't the healthiest. Ever heard of the Freshman 5? Basically, the average Freshman gains 5 pounds during their first year. Why is this? The simple answer: The food they eat. Most students are not used to being on their own so they aren't sure how to cook nice meals or how to balance their nutrition. They end up eating out at fast food restaurants more often then they should, and since they are normally broke, they buy cheap foods. Unfortunatly, cheap foods like Ramen, Mac n Cheese, and hot dogs, are very healthy for you. So be wise and buy some healthy things like salads, fruits n veggies, and try to eat the proper things from the food pyrimad. If eating in the cafeteria, just pay attention to what you're picking out.

Facebook

If you haven't already noticed, social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter are getting huge!!! Businesses are beginning to spend more money on advertisements within these sites, and more and more people are starting to use these sites for communicating with friends. Having a Facebook is fun, and it's really good in establishing a large network, but you need to watch what you post. Companies are beginning to look at applicants Facebook pages to see how they "really are". If you post a bunch of pictures of you drinking, doing illegal things, or posting controversal things, you can lose out on a job opportunity. Be smart, and realize that you aren't the only person in the world with access to your page.