·         Talk. Really. Talk about your homes, your families, your friends. It will give you all a better understanding of how each person is used to living.

·         Collaborate. Make your room/suite/apartment be an expression of each of you. Allow everyone to contribute to the decoration of your space.·         Set some ground rules. If you are having trouble compromising on a daily basis, write up a contract. ·         Make a chore wheel. I know of very few people who enjoy cleaning. And when you live in a small space, the littlest mess can seem a lot bigger. Make a chore wheel with all of your names and all of the chores that need to get done. Spin it every week so everyone trades off.·         Get lost together. No joke. You’ll learn a lot about your roommates and your new surroundings by wandering the campus/city together. Find cool places that you like to hang out at. Make it a mission to go out some place new each week, or go out for lunch every Sunday. It will create traditions within your new family.·         Give it time. Don’t expect to hit it off immediately with your roommates. If you do, that’s great! But if you don’t, give it a while. You’ll grow on each other.  

Anyway, I hope you all are well and have successfully started another school year. To kick things off, I’ve just got a few random tips to help make this year great!

 ·         Organize – If you don’t already, keep a daily planner with all of your assignments and appointments. Also keep a weekly schedule that visually blocks out periods of time that you regularly have scheduled, like classes and weekly meetings. Keep it up on a wall or bulletin board; some place where you can easily see it. Also keep a monthly schedule. This will give you a big picture look at things so you know what obligations you have coming up. That way you won’t all of a sudden realize you have way too many things to do in one week.·         Get involved – Trust me on this: life is better when you’re leading a full one. Find organizations that pique your interests. It will keep you active and give you a chance to meet new people.·         Nip it in the bud – whether it’s homework, relationships, or the dishing, get it taken care of before it all piles up.·         Sit up front – If you find yourself missing things in class, not following, or just falling asleep, sit in the front row. You have a better chance of hearing and seeing everything.·         Keep in touch – It’s easy to get caught up in your own busy schedule, but remember to keep in touch with your friends on and off-campus. Even the littlest of things will help to keep you close. Text someone you haven’t seen in a while and ask if they’d like to join you for lunch, or watch your favorite TV show (i.e. Gossip Girl Mondays in Sara’s room!)·         Ask questions – If you don’t understand that passage in The Iliad, ask your instructor. If you wonder if that toaster is allowed in your dorm room, ask your RA (it probably isn’t), and if you want to know how you’re friend’s relationship is going, ask him/her about it. It’s always good to stay informed! 

I hope this year goes great for everyone!

As always, words of wisdom:

“The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.” – Ben Stein

As I may have mentioned before, my mother is a high school counselor. I’ve gotten used to being her guinea pig for various surveys, programs, and presentations. Her latest is a presentation to be given to students in ROP (Regional Occupation Program) classes to inform them of the long run benefits of an education, which she had me proofread and edit. And I think some of this info will be very helpful to some of you.

As I hope all of you aware, a college education will earn you money. That is to say that you make more with a degree than you do without. Now I know plenty of people will think, “yeah yeah yeah, but I can do just fine without one!” Can you? Can you, really?

The following data refer to annual costs in Santa Cruz, California (my hometown)

· Housing (2bd 1 ½ bath) - $1,202
· Utilities (cell, electricity, DSL, cable) - $235
· Food (Eat in some and Eat out) - $350
· Transportation (Gas, insurance, car payments, basic maintenance) - $721
· Clothes (A few basic clothes) - $75
· Health Care (Basic Health Insurance) - $58
· Entertainment (Have fun, go out a little) - $100
· Personal (Basic needs) - $25
· Miscellaneous (Travel, other expenses) - $100
· Savings (average 5% of income) - $143
Total: $36,108

Before we even add these up, think about how accurate these numbers are. I don’t know about you, but I spend way more money on clothes than $75 per year. I just spent $50 last week! $25 for personal needs? I think not. And with gas prices skyrocketing, $721 probably doesn’t cut it. But, if we assume these cost estimates are correct, that brings annual expenses to $36,108. If you work full time for a full year, that’s 2000 hours. 36,108 divided by 2000 = $18 an hour. This means that in order to get by, even in a thrifty manner, you need to be making $18 an hour and working full time. (Oh, and by the way, these estimates don’t included taxes. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. Instead, subtract 25%.) As you are hopefully aware, minimum wage is not $18/hour. More like $8/hour. This means that it is impossible to get by on minimum wage.

So how do you make more than minimum wage (and therefore survive?) Education!

The following are estimates of the hourly and yearly wages per each education level.

· No High School Diploma - $10.70/hour - $21,400/year
· High School Grad - $15.10/hour - $30,200/year
· Associate Degree - $18.50/hour - $37,000/year
· Bachelor’s Degree - $24.60/hour - $49,350/year
· Professional Degree - $35.60/hour - $71,350/year

According to this data, you need at least an associate degree in order to support yourself. Really, given that even $36,108 a year is cutting it close, you need to be making more, which means a BA is in order, and the only way you can get a BA, and therefore survive in this world is to go to college.

“These days an income is something you can’t live without – or within.” – Tom Wilson

Community colleges have so many qualities that make them perfect for some people: they’re local, so students can live at home and commute, they’re cheaper than most 4-year universities, and they’re flexible. Community colleges understand that their students may want to transfer, so they let you know exactly what you have to do to get the most out of your community college education and then transfer to another university. And that’s where it gets hard. My friends in community college have more general education requirements than I do because their school specializes in provided such a wide range of academics, whereas mine is more focused in particular areas of study. Also, because many of my friends are looking to transfer, they have to work their butts off to get the credits they need to do that as soon as possible. It’s hard! And I admire them so much for doing what it takes.

But not all people realize just how much work community college can be. If they see their school as a joke, they will treat it as such. People may think that they’ll really start working once they transfer to a four-year school, so they slack off in community college. What they don’t realize is that they only way the can transfer in the time they’d like is to pay attention, ask questions, and create a plan for acheiving their dreams. This can’t happen if they’re slacking.

My advice for those of you looking into community college is to take it seriously. It is real school. Maybe you’d like to spend four years at a community college, maybe just two and then transfer. Either way, it will only be worth it if you get as much as you can out of the experience. (That goes true for any other school in the country.) And if you think only “nobodys” go to community college, take a look at these people who did (provided by collegeboard.com)

• Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer prize-winning poet
• Eileen Collins, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut
• Joyce Luther Kennard, California Supreme Court justice
• Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former United Nations (UN) ambassador
• Jim Lehrer, news anchor
• Robert Moses, choreographer and dance company founder
• Sam Shepard, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright
• James Sinegal, CEO of Costco
• Maxwell Taylor, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

If they can do it, so can you!

“I would visualize things coming to me. It would just make me feel better. Visualization works if you work hard. That’s the thing. You can’t just visualize and go eat a sandwich.” - Jim Carrey

As TeenInk Raw stands testament to, teenagers are brimming with ideas that cannot and should not always be edited for the general public or younger audiences. High school is edited. College is not. High school students certainly talked to each other about “unedited” subjects, like drugs and sex, and in an “unedited” vernacular language involving many of the words discussed by the late great George Carlin. However, a high school teacher would probably not talk to their students about unedited subjects in an unedited language. But a college professor would.

In a single year of college courses, I think every single one of my professors used “the F word” at least once, and one of my required reading book was called “The History of Shit” (an pretty interesting read, should you feel up to it.) My professors were also perfectly fine with discussing drugs or sex, including their students’ personal habits in both areas. As one professor put it “We’re all adults here.” He was right. In college, you are an adult, as are your professors, so the age difference doesn’t matter as much. In high school, I had many teachers whom I felt like I could speak with as equals. I respected them, they respected me, no problem. In which case, I never felt like there was a distinct student/teacher authority line that was shattered upon reaching college. No, nothing that dramatic. But the difference was still noticeable.

As always, words of wisdom: “Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end there.” - Clare Booth Luce

Alright, yes, this myth is technically two myths, and myths that are exact opposites as well. However, I think the debunking of each of these common beliefs about college is the same for both.

Now, I’m sure you have all heard the long-winded saying about school in general that is often favored by many a sharp-tongued cynic: You go to elementary school to prepare you for middle school, and what you learn in middle school is supposed to prepare you for high school, and you’re supposed to do well in high school so you can go to a good college, and you want to go to a good college so you can get a good job, and you want to get a good job so you can make a lot of money, because money = happiness. So if we’re talking about college, then we can say the purpose of college is to get a job. Well, yes…technically…but not quite.

Yes, you should always do your best in whatever you do, but not necessarily so you can make it to the next phase of your life. Yes, you should work hard in high school because your performance in high school affects your options for whatever comes after high school. But high school is not about getting into college. This is something that I didn’t really understand until after I had graduated, and I found myself wishing I had done more things that I wanted to do, rather than all the things I did simply because they looked good on a college application. High school should be about learning (as should college), but true education cannot come solely from a classroom; it comes from experience.

My point is that education is not as simple as “do X to get to Y to get to Z.” Education is what you make of it. Yes, you are limited in your course of study while you are in high school because high school curriculum is fairly standardized, but this is less so in college. You have a wider range of courses to choose from, and fewer conditions to meet. Even so, the things you learn in college should not all come from your professors. As I said before, learning comes from experience. So while reviewing your notes from today physics lecture may be quite educational, you may learn more from a conversation with your next door neighbor. College cannot be all about work.

Similarly, and yet completely opposite, college cannot be all about fun. Work hard, play hard, my friends. Yes, you will meet lots of people and make new friends, and yes, you will have the freedom to do essentially whatever you want, and yes, chances are you will have fewer classes early in the morning which means you can afford to stay up until 3 because you can sleep until 10 BUT…pace yourself. To quote my mother quoting a zillion Zen books: “Everything in moderation.”

Your college experience should be enjoyable, but that doesn’t mean it should be four years of parties 24/7 like many an exaggerated tale and episode of Greek could lead you to believe. School is hard work; it’s just that simple. You will spend just as many nights up until 3 in the morning writing a paper as you will partying with your friends, if not more (I hope.)

Striking a happy medium can be difficult, and believe it or not, sometimes it’s harder to go out and have fun with people than it is to stay at home and study. In fact, nearly all of my friends who just finished their freshman year of college have said more about the difficulty of typically “fun” things, like meeting new people, than about the difficulty of their classes. But more on that later. For now, as always, some words of wisdom:

“A child only educated in school is an uneducated one.” – George Bernard Shaw

As always, some words of wisdom: “The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by the perfect man.” – George Eliot

So there we are. There’s the belief that college kids live in such a way that is at best unconventional and at worst biohazardous. And this, combined with horrors that happened to your friend’s brother’s roommate’s sister’s boyfriend during freshman year, is probably why many students think that dorm life sucks. The truth is not (always) as frightening.

Alright, you’ve probably all heard that dorm rooms are tiny. Any yes, they can be, but not always. My bedroom at school is bigger than my bedroom at home. However, my dorm room is a suite – a living room, bathroom, kitchenette, and two bedrooms – that I share with 3 other people. In fact every room in my building is a suite, though most house 6 people. Another residence hall has mostly double bedrooms with communal bathrooms on each floor. And there are pros and cons to each of these. Yes, dorms may be small and can get messy. But the fact is, that’s part of college life, and really, dorm life is fun. After spending 18 years living with your parents, you now have the chance to decide how you want to live. You decorate your home, make your own rules, create a new way of life. It’s exciting. In the words of a tour guide at UCLA, “when else in your life are you going to get the chance to live with a thousand people your age?” And he was right. College life can be like having a sleepover with your best friends every night.

When I’m at home, usually have to drive at least 20 minutes to get to my friends’ homes. At school, I just walk down the hall. My school friends and I joke about the fact that we can just tick our heads out of our doors and yell in order to talk to someone 3 doors down. Living close to people means that you can always find what you need. A friend of ours (my roommates and I, that is) used to come over to our suite when he was working on homework because he liked the environment, and having other people around meant it was easy to bounce ideas around and get feedback. When friends of ours ran for student government, they could just go around the floor to collect signatures. When we decided to have a Thanksgiving party and eat cranberry sauce and yams from the can, make mashed potatoes in a microwave, and decorate with fake candles, we invited our neighbors and also used their coffee table and cooking utensils. When the hot water got turned off, our friend came knocking on our door dripping wet and wrapped in a towel asking if he could use our shower. Once, our neighbors got the idea to bring us breakfast in bed, but because we all had early classes and never ate in the morning, they decided on just a gentle wake-up call instead. So they borrowed keys, let themselves in, and that morning, instead of waking up to alarm clocks, we awoke to “Good morning, girls! Rise and shine!” which just made the whole day better.

When it comes right down to it, dorm life can be scary in theory. What if you have noisy neighbors? What if you don’t get along with your roommate? What if the shower the floor above you leaks so you have massive water damage to your ceiling and when you call maintenance they cut a hole in the ceiling of your shower to see what the problem is and then they never come back to fix the whole until the end of next semester and even then the damage isn’t fixed? Well…you’ll deal. Trust me on this, the pros outweigh the cons. If you’re interested in further reading I recommend The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run into In College by Harlan Cohen. Visit the website at www.thenakedroommate.com where you can hear original songs like “My Roommate Stu” and “The Syphilis Song.”

Remember these wise words when making popcorn or anything else that could possible burn and set off smoke detectors: “It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door.” – Publilius Syrus

So, College Myth #1: Everyone Knows What They Want To Do.

Well, this myth can actually have some truth behind it. Frankly it comes down to your school of choice. The best advice I can give you is to research. Learn as much about your school as you possibly can. Visit it and go on tours. Also keep in mind that your tour guides will be telling you all the wonderful things about the college in the hopes that you will attends, and al of these things can be blinding. Talk to regular students. I’m sure that anyone will be perfectly helpful and willing to answer any questions that you have. After all, they were in your shoes not too long ago. Learn about how the average person attended your college figured out what they wanted to do, if they have figured that out yet. Chances are, they’ll tell you it took them a while. And that’s ok.

At most colleges, you do not have to declare a major until your junior year. Junior year! You’ll have 2 years of college experience by then! Until then, take the time to try things. Dabble in photography or dance or elementary physics or whatever! It is perfectly fine to enter your freshman year having no idea what you want to do. I think that high school was about learning how to play the game. You learn how much pressure you can take, or what kind of schedule works for you. You learn what you have to do to juggle classes and extracurriculars. College is about learning about yourself. So enjoy.

A word to the wise: When looking at interesting classes, see if any of them fulfill a general education requirement. Example: You are interested in fashion and, hey look at that! There’s a course on the cultural significance of clothing in the Britain in the 1600s which fulfills your history requirement! Perfect!

In some cases, declaring a major from the get-go is just how the school runs. Emerson College, which I attend, is one of those. It’s a very focused school for the arts and communications where the vast majority of people come in having already declared their major. I entered as an undeclared major…or so I thought. I was actually enrolled as a Communication Studies major. Somewhere in the application process, it was a box that just got accidentally checked. See, I applied to ten schools my senior year. I decided that it would be easier on me to apply undeclared to all of them so that I wouldn’t have to do any supplemental forms, essays, or auditions. I was just too overwhelmed. Looking back on it, I applied to a lot of schools that I didn’t even want to go to. I should have narrowed my choices down and then thoroughly researched each school. Then I would have known that most Emersonians enter knowing what they want to do. During my first semester, I was surrounded by so many people who love to be involved in theatre, which is what I love to do too. But I never thought of applying as a theatre major to any school because honestly I thought that would have been a stupid idea. To me, an eternal cynic, studying to be an actress seemed like such an unstable path. So few people really make it in that business and I didn’t want to try so hard only to have my dreams constantly crushed. But as I talked with my friends, my academic advisor, and they head of the Performing Arts department, I realized more and more that I wanted to be a theatre major. Unfortunately, that required an audition as part of my application, and Emerson is so selective in its PA department that switching in would be just shy of impossible. So I did the best I could. I auditioned for plays and took an acting class for non-majors. In my acting class, I discovered how many people found themselves in a similar situation, that is, wanting to be an acting major but unable to get in. The more people I talked to, both at my school and others, the more I realized how many people were still unsure what they wanted. Even people I knew who had done every audition to get into one of the greatest performance schools in the country and had a 20 year plan of getting their dream career questioned themselves constantly.

So, my point is whether you know what you want or you don’t, the most important thing is to be thinking about it. Do your research, know how things work at your school. And as cheesy as it sounds, don’t give up on your dreams because sometimes they are what’s keeping you going.

“Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.” –Jonathan Winters (Coincidentally, this is actually one of today’s Quotes of the Day)

Now, as great as it feels to be done with school, it’s important to keep your brain limber this summer before you go to college. A few years ago, I spent the summer hanging out at the beach, swimming in the backyard pool, going on trips with friends, and basically having fun! And that was great, don’t get me wrong, but when September rolled around, I was so out of practice with the whole school thing, I didn’t feel like doing readings for classes and I didn’t see the point of taking tests. I had no motivation because I got so used to my summer schedule. So to help you learn from my mistakes, here are a few things to do during the summer so that going back to school isn’t a struggle.

Read

I don’t know about you, but it has been a long time since I had a summer free of assignments for next year. If you do have summer reading, do it. Don’t see it as a chore and put it off. Read little by little, break it up into chucks, or take your book(s) with you on a trip. It may feel more enjoyable if you’re reading on vacation in someplace other than your home. Aside from required reading, you should read for pleasure as well. Make a book list and try to tackle it this summer. )Mine is incredibly long and I don’t think I’ll finish it in one summer. That’s okay though.) Find times when reading suits your schedule. I read before bed every night. If I’m having lunch at home, I’ll take my book and food outside and read while I eat. I also like to go to the beach with a good book. Reading is good for you!

Embrace Technology

Part of the difficulty of going back to school after summer vacation is that you may not be used to absorbing information that’s presented to you. I’m not saying you should spend your vacation drilling facts into your skull; just find ways to learn while on break. I have one very simple way of doing that. You all have access to a computer connected to the Internet (if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this.) So use it! My homepage is Google, and I use the application iGoogle to add “gadgets” to my homepage. Every time I log on (which is a lot) I’m presented with information. I have links to the website of major news groups (CNN, TIME magazine, the New York Times, and the Washington Post). I also have Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day which is a great way to keep your vocab in shape. I also like Places to See Before You Die, which I have my own personal list of. Plus weather for both my cities of residence, horoscope, Quote of the Day, and a language translator. All of these things are great ways to connect you to information. You can be your own teacher! Find an interesting article? Research it and talk current events with your friends and family. See a quote you like? Look up the author and see what else they’ve done. See a new word? Find the definition and use it in a sentence. (ex: The world may be a better place if everyone took a more latitudinarian outlook.) The point is, keep your mind active.

Test Yourself

I have been blessed with the gift of good test taking abilities. Some people just test well. For the SATs and ACTs, several of my friends hired personal tutors, purchased practice books, and crammed the nights before. I scanned a few practice tests, took the SAT on three hours of sleep, and got a 2070. However, by that point I had also spent many many years taking tests. (For some reason, the vast majority of my teachers loved tests. Add California standardized tests on top of that.) No matter how well you test, you can still become out of practice. So practice this summer! I’m not saying you should finding calc quizzes online. Take a few SAT practice tests at collegeboard.com, or just try the SAT question of the day from time to time. Even if you’ve already taken the SAT, testing yourself is good practice.

Enjoy your summer vacations, everyone, and remember to keep your minds limber!

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.” – Chuck Reid