If you want to go to graduate school, then it’s time to start thinking about the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). But before ruining weeks of your life studying and then wasting four hours of your life taking the test, make sure you even need to take it. Do your research! Some schools don’t require it, some care more about certain parts of your score, and some require extra sections. Whatever the case, just make sure you need to take it.

Great. Now let’s say you do need to take it. Unlike the ACT/SAT, which a lot of people didn’t bother studying for back in the day, the GRE tests you on what Educational Testing Services think graduate students should know before grad school. This means you will actually have to study. Remember probability, slope-intercept form, and all those equations from math you thought you were done with years ago? Remember analogies and memorizing flash cards and five paragraph essays? You better hope so, because the GRE brings it all back with a vengeance.

There’s four sections on this bad boy:

1. Verbal – Vocab. Lots and lots of vocab. Go buy some flash cards right now – they will be your best friends soon.
2. Quantitative – Not calculus, thank gosh. But they’re talking all the way back to math you learned in middle school. This includes arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and quantitative comparison.
3. Analytical Writing – Haven’t taken a writing class since freshman year? You may want to refresh your writing skills because you’ll have to write two essays in one sitting: one argumentative and one issue.
4. Experimental (maybe) – This experimental section might show up on your GRE exam, but it won’t count toward your score. ETS wants to do research on future questions on you, and they unfortunately do not let you know. So basically, you might end up taking two Verbal sections and not knowing which was the random experimental part that didn’t count. I was devastated to hear that I would be wasting my time in this manner, but there’s really nothing we can do about it.

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Between homework, studying, group projects and partying, I really had a tough time managing my time in college. I was always looking for ways to make my life easier, and it always backfired on me. No matter what anyone says, Sparknotes is not an acceptable substitute for reading the book. You’re still not going to know the main character’s sister’s dog’s name. And your professor is always going to ask you for it.

But the good people at Microsoft must have heard my cries of pain and despair when they took it upon themselves to create their new program, Office Live Workspace. Not only does it let me store my documents and information online and let met access them anywhere from the Internet, but also, it’s FREE. So, when you’ve got a paper due in 12 minutes and your printer is out of ink, all you have to do is save that puppy to your personal online space, haul ass to the ‘brary, print it out and turn it in. Phew.

Even more amazing, Workspace takes the headache out of group projects because it has simplified the sharing process. Everyone in a group can access the latest edition of the document in a glorified, virtual “workspace” where they can collaborate, comment on and edit the same document. Without coordinating their super busy (or super “I don’t want to go to the library in the dead of winter to meet up with these losers”) schedules. Lord knows that’s the most annoying part of any group assignment (besides the a-hole who does nothing and gets the good grade…) Read More »