According to the Daily Beast, Columbia University, my school, offers the most stressful undergraduate experience in the country.

Admittedly, taking a tour of any campus library during midterms or finals is enough to set your nerves on edge. Under-eye bags are as common on campus as Longchamp bags. Many students (especially first-years) constantly complain about their work overload. However, during my three years here, I have never pulled an all-nighter, missed a deadline, asked for an extension, or taken Adderall, caffeine pills or any type of energy drink (though, admittedly, I was studying abroad during the era of Fourloko).

Is this some sort of miracle? Am I a genius? Do I have photographic memory? No, I wish, and that actually doesn’t exist. But that’s another story. What I am is organized and realistic. And successful.

Here are some of my tips for keeping it all together. Read More »

Get it out of your system now, ladies.

If there’s one thing we all know (but often try to deny), it’s that college is basically it’s own little universe. It’s that beer-drinking, bar-hopping, Cliff Notes-reading, coffee-chugging “safe haven” between the comfort of your parents’ home and that place everybody calls “the real world.” And unfortunately, we all know that “real world” is much less exciting than MTV moguls would like us to believe.

As a senior, I’ve finally realized one very important thing: College is awesome. And there’s quite a lot of sh*t you can get away with here that just isn’t gonna fly once you graduate. For example:

1. Mid-day naps. Unless you decide to hightail your pretty bum down to Mexico or start your own company or something, mid-day siestas are generally not in the typical workin’ girl schedule. Oh, how I love the five hour breaks in between my classes.

2. Threesomes. Unless you want to end up like Charlotte in SATC, watching your dude getting’ frisky and feelin’ up some rando-girl while you stand awkwardly on the sidelines, I think threesomes are definitely better explored pre-graduation. I think almost everybody has at least one wild hookup story (that may or may not involve multiple partners) by the time they leave college. And that’s where those kind of explorations should probably stay. In college. Read More »

Not only have you not started your holiday shopping, but you haven’t started that 20-page paper that’s due in 12 hours. Welcome to finals week! It’s the most stressful time of the year, where you get to play catch up on all the reading assignments you skipped for the past 4 months while you simultaneously study for 5 exams that happen within two days.

While some colleges like to add to your stress (thank you Bridgewater State for losing power while I was on page 16 of my un-saved 27-page paper), other colleges have started looking for creative ways to help students de-stress. Tufts University, for example, has begun bringing in cute, furry, slobbery pups for students to pet and play with as a way to mellow out during their mid-finals week meltdown. Cuddling up with a poodle sounds all well and grand, but I’m just not sure that’s enough to combat the stress ulcer forming in my belly.

So what can colleges do to really curb our ulcer-inducing stress? Here are 12 de-stressers I can get behind. Ommmm. Read More »

[Hey everybody! Sarabeth here with a new feature that, quite frankly, I'm stoked about. Each week I'll be bringing you an album that I feel is particularly awesome in the hopes of building iTunes libraries everywhere! It could be something new, old, hugely popular or fairly unknown, so keep checking back for our suggestions to awesome-ify your music collection.]

This semester is FINALLY starting to wrap up. Exciting? Yes, I can’t wait to finish this round of classes. Stressful? Hell yeah, mofo. The end of the semester means that every. single. thing. I’ve been working on is going to be due at the same time. And on top of that, I have to start studying for finals. Barf.

For those of you in the same situation, you need some music to get you through.

So where do I turn to in my moment (or 3 weeks) of need? My trusted pick-me-up album, Carnavas, of course.

About the Band
Silversun Pickups is an indie/alternative band from LA that has been around since 2002. It is made up of lead vocalist and guitarist Brian Aubert, vocalist and bassist Nikki Monninger, drummer Christopher Guanlao and keyboardist Joe Lester. If they sound familiar it’s probably because they’ve been featured in video games like Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, Rock Band 1&2, and Guitar Hero World Tour.

Yeah, these guys are major. Read More »

Contrary to what Animal House and Old School portray, college students lead a very busy and hectic life. And it’s not always easy to manage. Balancing lectures, all-nighters, student groups, on-campus jobs and a social life requires more than just a planner and a fake ID.

Luckily, there are new products popping up faster than next semester’s classes are filling up to make the college student’s life a whole lot easier: Read More »

According to University of North Carolina professor Kevin Caneiro, there’s a new disease lurking on college campuses nationwide. Dubbed  “Laptop-itis,” it is the result of excessive use of laptops and cell phones with symptoms ranging from worsened posture to pain in the backs, necks, and wrists of students everywhere.

Caneiro’s concern regarding this ailment is understandable – we don’t need an entire generation of hunchbacks, after all – but in the grand scheme of things, Laptop-itis is the least of our problems. Really, there are plenty of larger issues we college students should be worrying about. Like Athlete’s Foot from the showers. Or Mono from all those frat party makeouts.

Or any of these:

Laundr-phobia:  Often striking halfway through the semester, students present with an unhealthy, all-consuming fear of the laundry room (usually stemming from an uncertainty of how to use the machines).  Symptoms include a lack of underwear, crusty stains and a less than desirable smell of mildew permeating from their overflowing hamper.  In extreme cases, Laundr-phobia’s effects can be disastrous (and foul), often leading to ridicule and friend loss.  While there is no known cure, temporary reprieve is available during long weekends at home with mom. Read More »

There are some things you shouldn’t fake but you do anyway. We’ve all done it. I did it last night. Heavy breathing, a little writhing, a moan or two, and you’re got yourself a straight up ‘big O.’ Hey I just wanted to get some sleep, I was too damn tired for a marathon sex sesh.

It doesn’t mean that some things aren’t better faked.

Sometimes you just don’t have the time to read the New York Times every morning, or take up sailing to impress the hot preppy guy in your economics class, or even make sure your life isn’t a complete disaster. In this case, sometimes a girl just has to fake it. Hey, you think I actually have time to read the whole Economist every week to fit in with my superstar Ivy peers? Hells no.

How to Fake Knowing About Current Events:

1. Pick up the Economist from the library, read the first 5 pages where they summarize all the major events that happened in the past week in bullet points.

2. Skim the world section of the Times every morning, usually you can pick up the main points in 10 minutes- things in Iraq continue to go to hell, terrorism lives on, etc.

3. Every Sunday the Times summarizes all the major news stories of the previous week. Plus all the stories rock.

Read More »

Imagine your time in college without finals exams. Can’t do it? Sound like music to your ears? Well, it may become reality for some extremely lucky students. Harvard is making its professors decide within the first week of class whether or not there will be a final exam at the end of semester. Universities around the country look to Harvard as a trendsetter, so this new policy may be making its way to your campus in the next few years.

We all hate finals, but would we start to miss them if they were gone?

Pro: LESS STRESS! Five days to learn an entire semester’s worth of material in six different classes? Finals week is nothing but a week-long cram session, filled with multiple all-nighters and hours spent camping out in the library. The alternative to exams (projects, term papers, presentations) are much more reflective of what you actually learned and show that you understand the History of Mental Illness. This is what you’ll be doing for your boss in the future… not bubbling circles in with a Number 2 pencil.

Con: The cute, studious guy you find poring over a textbook in the student union (Hellloo study break!) – where will he be if his classes don’t have exams?

Pro: A stronger student-professor relationship. You are no longer just a number in a Excel grading sheet. A professor has to sit down, read what you write (or listen to what you are saying) and evaluate your work. Hopefully they would remember your six-page paper on The New Face of Public Relations and be more inclined to write out a great recommendation for your dream internship next semester. Read More »

Spring semester is winding down, and when we’re stuck in the library for 24 hours at a time with our eyes glued to a textbook and an energy drink surgically attached to our hands, it’s easy to count down to seconds until summer vacation. But as we all know, life back at home can be a drag an adjustment.

We’ve got it pretty easy on campus – sleeping till noon, going to class if and when we feel like it, and bar-hopping every night… while occasionally squeezing in some work. Pretending to be a real, responsible person when you get home to mom and pops can be a tough change. So while it’ll be all good in the hood to ditch those books in favor of mom and dad’s luxurious leather couch, there are a few things you might want to prepare yourself for before you head home for the summer. Read More »