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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So I’m registering for classes this week. The second semester of my senior year. My last semester ever as an undergraduate. Better make it a good one right? Oh, I intend to.

You see, I have a plan. I’m going to take my last two required college classes and then take on an internship for college credit so I don’t have to take a full course load can gain some real life experience without jumping into real life at full force.  But as I sit here and consider my potential schedule for next semester I start to realize, once again, just how final all of this is.

If everything goes according to plan (then again, nothing ever goes according to plan) I’ll only be in class two days per week next semester, six hours each day. Plus work, and the occasional club meeting/party/annual-event-I-swore-I’d never-attend-again-last-year. College life will still take up a decent chunk of my time, but not nearly as much time as it takes up right now. And it will be a complete turnaround from this semester, a semester that feels a whole lot like someone is playing a game of let’s see how long we can keep Jenn away from her bed before she collapses. So yeah, it will be different.

Less time on campus, means less time to be involved on campus. And as my college life gets closer to ending, my college life gets closer to ending. The school paper has already starting training editorial assistants to replace us, something I have a hard time grasping. We’re training people to replace us when I still feel like I need to be trained! And continuing with that theme, that campus job I had since I was a freshman? I’ve started training my replacement there as well.  And as I yammered on incessantly about the exact font size and label color that should be used on each folder, I started to realize exactly how not ready I am to hand over my color coded filing cabinet to someone else. (And, no, I don’t think it’s just because I’m a control freak, either.) Read More »

You know those “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up” essays you were assigned in sixth grade? Some kids wrote about wanting to be a rock star, a teacher, a mailman, a professional Sega Genesis player, an Olympic Pog champion…and you sat staring at your blank paper. How the heck are you supposed to know what you want to be at 11 years old?! And how the heck are we supposed to know now that we are in college?!

If you still find yourself lost and confused, don’t stress. Take a breath and open your school’s Courses Catalog. It’s time to pick a major. Having trouble finding your forte? Here are some tips and hints to finding your passion and turning it into a career (sorry, you can’t major in rock star): Read More »

It’s weird how when you’re away from your campus for so long and you finally roll into familiar stomping grounds, you feel like you never left. It seems like a dumb and cliché thing to say, but there’s something about being dropped from one familiar place (home) to another familiar place (school) that erases what little shock value might want to rear its ugly head.

Maybe it’s because I wanted to come back to school more badly than ever before, but I’m not having a hard time tucking summer into closets and chests. I’m still a little shell-shocked, though. I think it might have something to do with knowing that this is my last year here. I made this place my home more than real home, and not being here just sounds…wrong.

My school isn’t very nice to its upperclassmen, so I moved in on Saturday – which is a bitch when you live on the third floor with NO elevator – and started classes this Monday. I think maybe it’s to try and limit our Welcome Week to Welcome Weekend.

Like I told you guys last time, I’m playing the catch-up game, so I’ve got twenty credits this semester… and 16 next semester? Not sure how that one’s gonna work, what with my school only giving 4-credit courses, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. That’s five classes. Still, it’s nowhere near as bad as it sounds. There’s an ass-crack of dawn class (really, it’s only 8:30, but if the sun is still in the east it’s too early for me) that only has six people in it, a general psychology class STOCKED with freshmen (more on that later), an acting class that I can already see is going to be my chill-class, a colonial American Literature class with a professor who loves to hear himself talk, and an advanced poetry class that I still haven’t taken and I’m a little worried about. Read More »

I don’t know if it’s because I transferred after my freshman year, or if time really does fly when you’re having fun, but it doesn’t seem like I should be going into my senior year. Everyone else seems surprised by this too; family and friends always give me that “Are you serious?” look when I tell them that I’m going to be graduating in May 2009.

Even some of my buddies at school go, “Oh, yeah…,” when I remind them that I won’t be around to see all of the nifty things that are opening on my campus for Fall 2009. (Seriously, I’m paying for the school to build a new cafeteria and a new theater, but I don’t get to see them? What the hell is that about?)

To say I’m nervous is kind of an obvious. I have a ton of things to do this upcoming school year. I have to take twenty credits this fall and somehow have sixteen more by the time I graduate so I can actually graduate. I need two more creative writing classes to fulfill my Creative Writing minor. I need to find somewhere to take a Spanish 102 class, as I took the first half in a summer course (which you might have read me groaning about), but never quite crossed the finish line. Read More »

Every college girl – hell, every college student knows that school requires a lot of sacrifices. You give up things that you would have never otherwise dreamed of giving up beforehand. I’m entirely guilty of that (and don’t act like some of you aren’t, either); I’ve been taking my summer vacation for granted for years now, just vegging out, doing a little summer work, and reading.

But since I transferred after my freshman year, I lost a few credits. I still need to graduate in 2009; with the way tuition is, I can’t afford another semester or even another year. So since I was a little underweight in the distribution section, I decided to do what any smart, responsible college student would do; I signed up for summer classes.

Summer classes are no joke. They last just about a month, maybe a little bit longer. You’re learning things that are usually spread out throughout a semester, but crammed together into four weeks. It’s fast-paced, hectic, and time-consuming. It’s even harder if it’s a subject you’re not familiar with.

I’m taking Spanish 101 and 102 at my local community college to get my language requirement out of the way. Mind you, I’m already pretty well versed in Spanish. I took it for about ten years in baby steps. But now that it’s pretty much being crammed down my throat and even I’m having some difficulty. Read More »