"I miss Welcome Week." Sigh.

Lately it seems like Facebook is on a mission (aided by the company that sells prozac) to make me feel suicidal every time I sign on. For weeks all the status updates and albums were “lovin’ summer” and “will it ever stop raining this summer?” I could easily relate to those as I was also experiencing summer and the torrential rain showers of ’09.

However, now I sign on and I have to see this:

Jessie can’t wait for classes to start up!
Shar regrets that first night back jungle juice!
Alissa accidentally packed her keys into the trunk but it won’t stop her from getting to school!

And all these statues and declarations of school spirit are forcing me to realize that I’m officially not going back to school…although my diploma has yet to come, so that’s actually still questionable. For the first time in my entire life (I started school mere months after birth) I’m not buying fresh new school supplies and I’m not sitting in classes trying to read the professor’s mind and decide if she is really going to give pop reading quizzes. I don’t even know what to do with my hands if they’re not flipping through syllabi. Read More »

After four years of attending a Big 10 school, I am now in big time debt.  I’ll be in even more debt after I return for yet another semester.  Do I have a job?  No.  Has my university made good on their promise to hook me up with sweet career options and internships?  No.  All jobs and internships that I have had were found on my own time and through my own devices (and only one of those actually had anything to do with my major).

So…what exactly am I paying for (besides education)??

Well, at least someone else is thinking along the same lines.  A Bronx woman is suing her college for $70,000 or roughly what she paid in tuition fees because the career center hasn’t given her any advice or career leads.  Read More »

When I got to college I thought I knew with 100% certainty that I wanted to be an English teacher. I spent my first two years fulfilling all of the requirements for the School of Ed and then spent the next two years preparing for my life in a high school classroom.

Only, upon graduation, I realized that I’d rather die than work with those ungrateful little bastards ever again teaching wasn’t for me.

And that’s when the sh*t hit the fan. You see, my parents’ generation was one where you get a job and do it until you retire at 65. It may not be ideal and you may not love it deep down in your core, but it’s a good job and you do it. You don’t take a year off and think about what you want to do; you don’t try out different fields and see which one makes you happy. You get a job, get off the family payroll and become an adult. Read More »

Questiony for Tuffy? Email her at tuffylove@collegecandy.com to be featured in her column, which runs every other Tuesday! ASK. ANYTHING.

Dear Tuffy Luv,

I’m graduating from a small liberal arts college in May and I’m starting to get realllllly nervous about job hunting. Everyone says this is a terrible time to start looking for a job. What am I supposed to do?????????

Thanks for your help!

Terrified Senior

Dear Senorita Senior,

Honey, boy do I feel your pain. You think there’s a lotta work out there for stylized advice columnists? Hint: There ain’t.

The economy here in the US definitely sucks right now. As of December, the unemployment rate was up to a very frightening 7.2%. But, listen. Tuffy’s got a few tricks up her sleeve for you. And it’s a very large sleeve. Bell, maybe. Or perhaps kimono. Read More »

In junior high, I wanted pink hair. Actually, maybe wanted isn’t the right word. I was more or less obsessed with having pink hair, and basically anything pink in general.

However, my mother – who let me get my tongue pierced at 14 – thought that Bubblicious-colored locks were just too radical for my upper-middle class suburban town. So I reluctantly settled for a bright, Ronald McDonald shade of red and completely embarrassed myself for the rest of 8th grade.

But my obsession with pink hair – and every girl I ever encountered sporting it – never ended.

So when I stumbled upon this website, created by a tattooed beauty who at the time of my discovery donned the exact shade of pink hair I so longed for in my wannabe punk rocker days, I developed my first-ever girl crush. Not to mention the fact that I was insanely jealous of not only her looks, but her success.

Gala Darling, the writer and sole creator of iCiNG, deemed “a tattooed Miss Manners with pink hair” here and “a local yet globehopping fashion genius” here is exactly what I would be today….if my mother hadn’t crushed my poor little teenage heart almost 7 years ago.

Except Miss Darling is from New Zealand, is much more insightful, and probably has better hair than I could have ever dreamed of pulling off with some Manic Panic and my 8th grade friends’ “kewl hair skillz.” Read More »