We’ve all been there: just when your enrollment time rolls around, the class that you planned to take next semester is now full. Even though you need that class to qualify for another upper-division course, accept that dream internship AND graduate on time, there just aren’t enough seats. And when you attempt to crash the class, the wait list is moving at a glacial pace and you’re getting seriously desperate. How much would you pay to add that course? Would you pay more than four times the current fee per unit? Is that even fair? Is that even legal?!?

A few things are for certain: it’s happening, it’s pissing people off and, therefore, it’s the Hot Button Issue of the week.

According to the Los Angeles Times, an incredibly popular community college in Southern California will soon implement a two-tiered pricing system that offers high-demand classes at a much higher price. Class fees are currently set at $36 per unit and will rise to $46 beginning this summer. As part of the new system just approved by the school board, crucial classes at Santa Monica College will costs about $200 per unit. The new program would be offered as soon as this summer and winter — the latter of which may only offer the higher-priced classes. Hey, desperate times obviously call for desperate measures.

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Here at the University of Alabama, I’ve been really fortunate with my class experiences. I graduated with a class of 102 students, so coming to a large SEC school was definitely culture shock. My first class had 300 students in it, and I felt like a number. As I finished my gen-eds and started on courses for my major, the class sizes shrank significantly. From my sophomore year on, I didn’t have a class with more than thirty students. It felt more like a normal experience once I got through the large lectures of Biology and Philosophy 101, but it seems that a lot of students actually like being in super-sized seminars.

I can’t help but think why. Sure lectures can be great if you don’t really need to pay attention or you’re feeling the effects of a Thursday night out. You can sit in the back and play Angry Birds without worrying that you’ll get called on to participate. But for me, I didn’t learn anything in my lecture classes. I felt awkward speaking up because there were so many people and most of the time, the professors spoke for so long you couldn’t even get a word in. We had clickers to check in for attendance and take quizzes and to me, that’s just not learning. Read More »

As I write this, I am about to embark on my final semester of my college career. Weird, right? It almost seems like yesterday when I was a little freshman moving in to my dorm. Except for the growth part, a lot has changed in these three and a half years. I’ve learned the hardships of picking the right classes and managing my social life and my studies, but it was all worth the ride. It’s cliché, but some say that college is the best four years of your life, and it’s true. They go by in the blink of an eye, so take the time to cherish your college life.

1. Make a Bucket List

While it should be on nearly all seniors’ to-do lists, making a bucket list at the beginning of your college career can help you get to know your campus a lot better. Who knows? If you accidentally stumble upon one of your campus’ landmarks, you not only knocked something off “the list”, but have a great story to go along with it. If your school has a great basketball team, sit in the student section and go to a basketball game. The student section of a sports game has its own little bubble, and that’s where all the excitement is. Whatever is on your list, don’t miss out and start making it happen.

2. Take Advantage of Campus Resources

The thing about college is that it offers a variety of resources that very few students actually take advantage of. From coffee houses with free Wifi to free entry to recreation centers, free printing, and basically anything with the word FREE next to it, be sure to snatch up these opportunities now before you have to pay for the real thing once you enter the real world. Syllabus week is the best time to get freebies from bookstores, so don’t miss out!

3. Learn How to Balance Academics and Activities

This is a pretty simple rule to follow, but sometimes, a freshman’s first semester can get a little out of hand. You’re on your own for the first time without Mom and Dad deciding your every move, so it’s up to you to determine if you’re going to that 10 a.m. class or if you’re going to go out every night. Here’s a handy tip: Go to all of your classes during syllabus week. While you should be attending them all semester long, this way, you can decide whether it’s worth dragging yourself out of bed every morning. And while it’s fun to go out, know your limits and know your deadlines. Don’t go out the night before you have an exam, and instead of pulling all-nighters and cramming, study for an hour a day until you have the material down. Studies have shown that you retain more information the longer you study. Plus, you can still have free time to do whatever else you want.

4. Go to Your Professor’s Office Hours

Like the rule before it, this is another handy tip for freshmen. If you’re stuck on an issue or don’t understand the material from lecture, go to your professor’s office hours as soon as you notice a problem. Professors have taken an hour out of their day to meet with students to help them succeed in the class, so it’s harmless to take an hour out of your day, too. Plus, if you go early on, you can get to know the professor and see what a future exam might be like, and if you take the time to meet with the professor, chances are if you’re on the border for a grade, he or she will bump you up.

5. Have Fun!

Simple and easy. The opportunity to be a young undergraduate only comes once, so live it up to the fullest!

It’s the summer after you’ve graduated high school. You’ve finished your exams. You’ve finished the college application process. You have your diploma, you’ve taken the pictures in the cap and gown and you finally decided on a college. So now all you want to do is kick back and relax and enjoy an entire summer free of responsibility and full of hanging with your friends before you each go your separate ways to start some new adventures.

Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. I was there four short years ago. And because I’ve been there already I know what comes next. So I thought I’d give you a little advice. Because all those papers that came along with your acceptance letter, they weren’t there just to stuff the envelope. Starting college involves a lot more than checking off the box next to “I will attend.” So here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Send in a picture for your id. Chances are you already have a form telling you how to do this. So send in the picture. And make it a good one. One you like. One you won’t regret four months later, or better yet, four years later, when you’re a senior using an id that looks nothing like you because you no longer have pink hair.

2. Activate your college e-mail address. Again you were probably sent a whole bunch of papers when you sent in your acceptance . One of them probably tells you how to activate your e-mail. Do that. So you’ll get all those e-mails different offices will no doubt be sending you. And so you can join your school’s Facebook network.

3. Get in touch with your roommate. So it’s not an awkward first meeting on move in day. So you know what you’re getting into. And so you don’t end up with two refrigerators and no microwave. Plan ladies, and plan well.

4. Check the parking policies. Find out if your campus allows freshman to bring cars on campus. And if they do, find out if you have to pay for your parking pass. And then sign up for a parking pass. If you have a car, that is.

5. Check and double check that move in date. Season four. Episode one of Gilmore Girls. Rory wrote the wrong date down. Chaos ensued.

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Brace yourself ladies, because today is not just any other Friday.

Today is Friday the 13th.

The day of bad luck and cursed lives and black cats and broken mirrors. Today is a day to fear. Today is a day to lock our doors and stay inside. Why is Friday the 13th supposed to be such an unlucky day, you ask? I think it has something to do with the superstitions surrounding the 13th and Fridays in general (guess Rebecca Black never heard about that) joining together to be the ultimate source of bad luck on Friday the 13th.  And as a result there are lots of horrors that await us.  Is it true? I doubt it. But even so, you might want to prepare yourself.

For anything.

Here are 13 unlucky situations (AKA, every college girl’s worst nightmare) you better wish you don’t find yourself in on this unlucky Friday the 13th.

1. Your hair straighter/dryer/curling breaks minutes before your big date… with only half your head done.

2. You sleep through your final exam.

3. Your hard drive crashes…before you printed out your final paper.

4. The guy you’ve been crushing on goes Facebook official with your frenemy.

5. Your train reroutes on the way to your interview. Read More »

There are a lot of different illness associated with different times of the year. There’s flu season in the winter. Allergy season in the spring. Sunburns in the summer. But around early April and May a different disease starts to take hold, and it goes after a very specific group.

College seniors.

It’s serious and it spread quickly. But the problem is the symptoms can at first appear so subtle that college students may not even notice they have them. Their regular behavior is simply heightened. So when going about their normal, every day lives they don’t even realize that they’re actually struggling with senioritis. That’s why they can’t write that paper or concentrate in class. That’s why everything seems impossible. If  you’re a college senior and this, or any of the signs below sound familiar to you, you may be suffering from senioritis. (And no, we don’t recommend looking up your symptoms on WebMD. Just check out our senioritis bucket list instead.)

1. Oversleeping. Your alarm goes off so you press the snooze button. And then you press again. And then again. And then you glance at the clock and realize your class starts in five minutes…and then you roll over and go back to sleep. 

2. The desire to never do anything productive anything again. The other night, instead of watching the movie I was supposed to watch for class I spent the night watching the entire first season of Brothers and Sisters on Netflix instant play. It seemed like an excellent idea at the time.

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Since it’s that time of year, the time for choosing colleges (and for some, leaving college) Jezebel has decided to depart some wisdom on all the high school senior hopefuls out here, asking them to really think about what they want out of there college experience, about why they’re choosing the schools they’re choosing, and the effects those choices will have on their college careers.

Well, their great advice has inspired me to give a little advice of my own. Less about choosing a college, and more about the things you should remember once you get there, about how to bridge that gap between college and the real world, and how to make the most of your opportunities while you still have them.

I mean it’s not all boys, beer, and parties (even though those are important too), so here are a few things I wish I knew when I was a mere freshman.

1. You’ll change your major at least once. Everyone always told me this, but I would just shake my head at them and laugh. Not me, I knew what I wanted to major in. I loved to read and to write. I was going to be an English major. But even I eventually had a moment of doubt. The entire second semester of my freshman year into the summer before my sophomore I was convinced I would be changing my major to information systems. That seemed like a far more practical choice with better options for post-grad jobs. Granted I eventually realized I was not made to be an information systems major and found my way back to English (and later, Philosophy) but I was so concerned with trying to pick a major that I didn’t even realize that… Read More »

There’s a lot of great sites out there on the internet. If anyone would know that, you would. (After all, you did find us.) But finding all of them isn’t always easy. So most of  the time you probably stick to the same old, same old, right? CollegeCandy. Facebook. Google. CollegeCandy. Maybe Texts From Last Night if you’re feeling adventurous. We know. We get it. Scouring the blogs for the best there is isn’t always easy and it’s definitely not quick. But now, you don’t have to do the legwork (or finger work? Er…) CollegeCandy’s Web Spy does it for you. Each week this column brings you a new find. From the best online shopping sites to the best places to waste your time to the best ways to get yourself organized and avoid procrastination, the last of which are the sites I’ll be focusing on right now.

The semester is winding down. Soon there will be papers to write and finals to study for, which means cutting out the procrastination and cracking down on the studying, which isn’t always easy. But fear not, our resident Web Spy has done her research, providing CollegeCandy readers with ten surefire ways to get organized and start studying.

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It’s finals week. You’re living on coffee and chocolate. Your days are spent in the library. Your nights are spent in the library. You’re wracking your brain trying to remember historical facts no one knows about and chemical equations you will never use. You’re stressed and crazed and far from in the mood to write. But write you will have to do.

Because in exchange for not having to take a final for that literature class you have to write a paper. And not just any paper, but a good paper. A really good paper. Because this paper is worth a large chunk of your final grade. The problem is though, you’ve never really gotten a grip on that whole paper writing thing. Sure, you know the basics, but do you know the specifics? Do you know how to avoid the mistakes that will keep that A just out of reach?

Well, I do.

After four years as an English major, one year as a literature tutor, and two semesters worth of thesis writing, I think I’ve cracked the code. And I’m going to share my secrets with you. Below are the most common grammatical and paper writing mistakes, the things you always miss, the things you need to know, the rules standing between you and that elusive A. So bookmark this page and consult it when writing those final papers. You’ll thank me later.

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Like with most things in my life (namely, the boy I’m kinda, sorta talking to right now), I have a very complicated relationship with college. Over the past four years, we’ve had our ups and downs. There have been moments when my only thoughts were, I love college (when I was living one of these moments), and there were others (like when I was writing my thesis) when I’ve thought, I hate college with a fiery passion…

Ahem.

But that’s probably because college is a complicated institution, full of things we want to do, things we should do, and things we have to do. Some of the stuff is fun (Saturday tailgates), and some of the stuff is not so fun (Sunday all-nighters). So often, we love college just as much as we hate it. It’s a different experience for everyone, but I’ve pulled some of the more universal love/hate conundrums that go hand in hand with the college experience. Read More »