I'm gonna be bald by the time I graduate.

Ok, I know it’s only the middle of the semester – the hump of the term – but I can’t lie … senior year is brutally kicking my ass. As I keep referring to my day-minder to see what is due next or what I need to worry about in the near future (For example, the GRE), I can’t help but think back to sweeter, less busier times such as my first year in college – which I swear feels like it just happened yesterday.

Seniors, doesn’t it feel like just last week were filling out college applications, picking where we would attend, and nervously packing up our rooms and moving into our dorm room for the first time? The last three years have flown by, and this year is no different, except instead of saying to yourself “I have ___ many years left” you hear the fast-paced ticking of the clock letting you know your time is dwindling.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Well, if you’re like me, you are hearing more than the ticking of the graduation clock. Read More »

Let me take you back to a simpler time: my sophomore year of college. I had recently been dumped by my longtime boyfriend, and after about a month of taking solace in Half Baked and Friends reruns, I was finally ready to put myself on the market again.

I went to a party with my friends and proceeded to get drunker than I had been since my senior prom. A few hours and several sketchy mixed drinks later, a curly-haired boy started dancing with me. He wasn’t exactly my type, but since I was on the rebound and, let’s face it, not exactly in the best position to be making decisions, I went with it. I had never randomly hooked up with someone I had met at a party before, but I was convinced that doing that tonight would make me forget all about what’s-his-face.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Curly told me he was leaving. “Okay!” I yelled.

“The thing is, I want you to come with me,” he delicately screamed over the dulcet sounds of Lil John and the Eastside Boyz’s “Get Low.”

“Okay!” I yelled again. Read More »

Every week, CC and John bring you some of the weirdest, funniest, saddest things he hears on his college campus. Join the Overheard revolution!Leave your own overheard convos in the comments or send ‘em over!

(Freshman in a dining hall.)

Freshman: College is so cool! It’s, like, the most sophisticated universe in the universe.

(Angry girl, heard through a dorm-room door.)

Girl: F***in’ a! What am I supposed to do? Dogs ate my underwear!

(Two girls, in the business school.)

Girl 1: I love Humphrey Bogart

Girl 2: Yeah, me too. Did you know he got his start in ’80s science fiction B-movies?

Girl 1: Wow, really?

Girl 2: No. Read More »

Another semester looms large (almost as large as my tuition bill – hey yo!) and we’re faced with the prospect of returning to campus or, if you’re a freshman, moving into the dorms and living with someone you’ve never met before.  Stressful times, right?  Might as well crack open a couple beers (or bottles of vodka) and start breaking the ice with your new floormates.

Drinking games have long been a superb way of breaking the ice with new people (seriously, nothing sets a casual, friendly atmosphere like chugging shots at 3pm), but how do you move beyond the old favorites?  Sure, everyone loves flip-cup, beer pong, power hour, quarters and Edward 40-Hands (oh my, I do love Edward…and his crazy brother, Edward Whiskey-Hands), but if you really want to impress your cute next door neighbor, then you better bust out something creative.

Luckily for you, CollegeCandy did all the work for you.  Here, for your fall semester enjoyment, are some original and interesting drinking games.  Play with caution (and gusto!): Read More »

If you’re an incoming college freshman relying on your parents to guide you through the biggest transition of your life, you are gonna be effed. What do parents know about college?

I’ll tell you: nothing.

Who should you turn to?
The guy working at Bed Bath and Beyond?
Some old dude who puts out a college survival guidebook?

Pshhhh. What do old people know?

How about us?
You’re already here, so you obviously love us (and how could you not?!). Now it’s time to trust us and the wisdom we can impart.

We know college, because we’re in it. Right now. We know what you need to pack (costumes! Trust us!), what you need to avoid (hooking up with a prof, fo realz) and what you need to do to survive that grueling first week of college classes.

You want to know what we know? Just visit our back-to-school guide. It’s chock full of all the information you will need to go from scared pre-frosh to sexy, confident and all-knowing Queen of your campus. Yeah, we got your back. Now get out there and show that new campus who’s boss!

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman, so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like healthcare reform!) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

There’s all kinds of advice out there about your freshman year, but more than what classes to take or how I should bring my own Solo cup to parties, the the biggest piece of advice I heard back then was “don’t get a boyfriend right away, play the field.” Of course, being the serial monogamist that I am, I didn’t listen. And got a boyf faster than most students unpacked their boxes. But now I have to wonder if I would have been better off if I had listened to those wise sages. There’s a definite up and down side to the first semester boyfriend, and I think we owe it to all the ladies getting ready to start freshman year to talk it out.

The temptation of the first semester boyfriend is almost insurmountable. You’re in a new place, surrounded by new people - new, attractive people – who don’t know about that time in high school when you slipped in chocolate pudding and had to walk around all day with a brown stain on your butt. All of a sudden you get to pick the kinds of classes you take, the activities you get involved in, the events you go to - which means your chances of meeting someone who’s really compatible with you is way higher than when you were just meeting guys who lived in the same school district as you. Read More »

I learned more my first week at college than I did in my entire life. And I don’t mean academically. I mean socially, financially, emotionally and drunk-ly. Some things took longer to figure out than others (that I should visit the ATM before I get to the bar, to avoid extra fees and my tendency to tipsily make it rain) and other things took mere minutes (don’t eat dining hall hot dogs).

But there are 5 things that every freshman should figure out their very first week on campus. Consider this College Life 101: Intro To The Best 4 Years of Your Life.

The go-to hangover breakfast spot: For those mornings when a Gatorade and toast just won’t do the trick, you need to find the most happening breakfast place near campus. This is not only important for the mornings when you need to take things to-go (back to your bed where you can lie in the dark while watching Daisy of Love marathons), but also for the social aspect of morning-after breakfast. Because everyone knows, after the party it’s the after party…and after that and the hotel lobby… it’s IHOP.

So, on those mornings when your inner monologue sounds like “Hahalalala definitely still drunk and my hair and makeup still look great!” you’ll know where you and your girls can go to re-cap last night’s madness while chowing on carby goodness and watching people walk in wearing their clothes from the night before. Read More »

The summer after I graduated from high school I was excited to finally be free from compulsory family vacays to celebrate the 4^th of July. So to celebrate both America’s and my own newfound independence, I went big, I went all out – I went to a house party.

It was the kind of party I look back fondly on in remembrance of high school days. There was cheap vodka, a backup keg, and plenty of top shelf liquor plucked from the generous hostesses’ parents liquor cabinet. The night started out innocently enough, with keg stands, red and blue shots (white didn’t work out the way we’d planned), and plenty of high schoolers bragging about just how wasted they were.

As a mature, soon-to-be-freshman, I was so over the same un-graduated attendees that had been plaguing house parties for the last 4 years of my life. As I lamented the lack of “real men” with my equally sophisticated best friends, the college guys showed up. Read More »

Now that I’m halfway done with my college career (a pretty cushy place to be, considering I have two more years before the real world), I anticipate all the bright eyed and bushy tailed freshmen about to invade the dorms and use fake-id’s at all my favorite bars. Putting myself in their shoes, I wish that someone had been there to give me advice for my college career (all I got was my Mom telling me not to hook up with any fraternity boys until Spring semester). So I dove in head first and learned a few lessons of my own.

I learned the value of my dry erase board to my social life, I learned that “attendance optional” classes are not always a good thing. I learned that I should always have an assortment of costumes readily available, and that sharing drinks with my friends meant sharing drinks with whoever they made out with (and whoever they made out with…) All of these were very important lessons, and I’d like to share some of the pearls of wisdom I gained my freshman year. Read More »

I know the semester isn’t over yet – unfortunately – but I feel fully comfortable here now. Why? Because I am ready for summer. I know it’s weird to feel like I belong because I am wishing I weren’t here, but for the first time college is beginning to feel like the good-old-(or at least predictable and comfortable) days of high school.

In the fall, I was so excited and nervous to be here. With all the new parts of my life keeping me busy, I skipped the phase of I-wish-it-were-still-summer that I have every October of my life. And while I looked forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, it was not because I wanted to get away from school, but that I wanted to see my hometown again. That last day of finals was actually a little sad, since I knew I’d be without my college friends for over a month. This was drastically different from the last day in December for previous years, when I stuffed everything in my backpack and drove out of the school parking lot as fast as possible.

What truly surprised me was that coming back to college this spring was interesting. In high school, coming back from break meant midterms, more studying, and many dull and long months to go. This year it meant new classes that I got to pick, seeing my friends again, and going out more. So far, my usual emotions during the school year have been off compared to years before. Until now. Read More »