Your hair is done, your makeup is on and you’re outfit is perfect. All you have to do is pack that wristlet and you’re ready to head out with your friends. Money? Check. ID? Check. Camera? Check.

Before you leave, you mix a few drinks and have a mini dance party with the girls. Two rum and Diets and a few old school Britney songs later, it’s time to head out. But not without a “SELFIE!!”

You gather the girls around, make your sexy face, stick that arm out and capture the moment.

“Let me see!” your friends shriek.
“Ew. I have a double chin. One more!” So you take one more.
“Cuuuute!” everyone agrees. You put the camera back in your bag and head off to the bars. Read More »

Last Christmas, a nice family got together to take a photo for their yearly holiday cards. Last week, that same family discovered their photo…in Prague…being used for a local grocery store chain’s advertising campaign. Weird? Weird.

That little sitch got us thinking about all the photos we post online. Truth is, you never know who can get their grubby little paws on your stuff once you’ve handed it over to the world wide web, especially considering you can never really take it down. Who knows what weird company (CollegeCandy.com) is going to pick up your drunken selfie and splash it on billboards (or websites) nationwide?

It can happen to anyone, even you, drunk girl dancing on a table in the bar. Just look how simple it is:

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Think about the first time you really started applying for a “grown-up” job.  You bought some new professional clothes, you hammered out an amazing resume, and you cleaned up your Facebook.  Or did you?

A recent study done by Cambridge University shows that even if you delete some photos from your Facebook, they may still exist in some other dusty corner of the internet.  The explanation is that Facebook is such a large site that it divides its content into different servers and your pictures are on one of those servers.  That makes it difficult to actually find your pictures and delete them after you press the button.

Although Facebook’s official position is that pictures are removed immediately when you delete them, it’s hard not to be worried about the “time lag” between pressing that button and never seeing myself in a wet tee shirt contest, shaking it in Cancun again (yes, it happened and yes, the pictures have already been deleted…I hope).

What does this mean for the Facebook generation?

Our entire lives are recorded online, picture to picture, status message to status message.  There are some things that, at the time, seem completely hilarious and appropriate to post.  When we’re just thinking about the reactions we’ll get from our friends, that is.  When we have to start thinking about reactions from our boss and our future bosses, things get a little hairy. Read More »

A trip to the campus bookstore is an exercise in self-assurance. When you spot an intriguing book that you cannot wait to read cover to cover, you may or may not have the cajones to bring it up to the counter. Why, you ask? Hmm, maybe because its entitled The Going Down Guide: Tongue Tips and Oral Techniques for Men and Women!

Sure, it may be full of exclusive tips that you are dying to learn and try out on your man, but can you really muster the moxie to pay for it along with a bottle of water and box of pens?

“What if the cashier thinks I have an oral-fixation that I need to feed in between classes by learning how to properly fellate a fellow?” The embarrassment would be akin to buying the economy-size box of tampons at the grocery store while still in your PMS PJs.

But, now I wonder: what other hidden treasures can I find in the bookstore that I’m too scared to plunk down the cash for in public?

Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both
What it’s about: So, do you think that by hooking up you’re being sexually empowered and going after what you want for a change? Not so, says Laura Sessions Stepp. She “follows three groups of young women over the course of an academic year to discover what hooking up is all about. She attends class with them, parties with them, and listens to them talk about their sexual encounters – coming away with some enlightening and disturbing insights into sexuality.”

What it tells the cashier: I am sorta slutty and I want to know the repercussions.

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Even though celebrity gossip websites like Perez Hilton and TMZ have become a daily pop-culture bible for some of us, there are always those moments when the internet just will not do. Bringing your laptop to the beach is definitely a no (sand in my precious Mac? Psh, girl, no way), and trying to go online on a plane might get you stuck in a situation like the passengers on Lost (there’s a reason why you need to turn off electronics, after all).

For times like those, magazines are the way to go (plus, who doesn’t like perfume samples and grocery coupons?). But you don’t want to waste your money on just any magazine; you want the one that will give you the most (gossip) bang for your buck.

So which ones are best? I scoured the grocery store check-out aisles for candy bars the top dogs in gossip magazines and here are my rankings: Read More »

[Ever see something you want but don’t have the money to buy? Ever get sick of studying/watching TV and have the urge to get crafty and make things on your own? We know! Us too! We just don’t know where to start, which is why we got some of CollegeCandy’s craftiest writers to share their favorite DIY projects with everyone. So get to your nearest craft store for the essentials and let’s make some fun sh*t.]

The semester is coming to a close and I can’t help but feeling a bit nostalgic. I’ve been going through my photos, reminiscing and getting a little misty that I have to leave these people in just a few more weeks. As I sat in my dorm room, weeping in front of my laptop, I started wondering why I don’t take advantage of all the pictures I’ve accumulated over the years. Of course I have the obligatory photo collage, a few in frames, and a few for the wall of shame, but that doesn’t even make a dent in the Facebook photo albums.

So I’ve been searching high and low for cool new ways to display the shrine of my college years and fell in love with the photo cube. Simple, modern and chic, it looks like something straight out of an Ikea catalogue. But don’t bother buying it because its easy enough to do it yourself. Read More »

Though we’ve all heard that there are future employers, spouses, and murderers who are going to look us up on Facebook to stalk our past indiscretions, how many of us can truly say that our Facebooks are rated PG? While I remember myself painstakingly deleting every picture with the slightest reference of alcohol before I entered college, once I arrived at Michigan, it seemed that every person I knew was tagged in some sort of waterfall or beer pong picture. Slowly, I stopped being so anxious about what went up in my albums; a shot glass here, a beer bottle there, etc. Sure, I still de-tagged pictures of myself chugging bottles or double-fisting shots, but it never occurred to me that the mere mention of alcohol in an album would hurt my good name.

However, a couple of weeks ago I was presented with a problem when the advisor of my sorority came to me with pictures of me and my fellow sisters drinking in the house. While it is pretty easy to deny that you break the rules, it is hard to do so when you are presented with a picture of yourself mid-Smirnoff shot in your own room.

Though none of the pictures came from my own albums, I still found myself staring at my own face. These were pictures that were DE-TAGGED. Pictures that I had known were inappropriate, and had clicked the little button next to my name, the one that makes everything bad go away. I suppose when we all look at the pictures tagged of us and don’t see one, we forget that, despite not having our name, it still exists. Albums from August with pictures that I had forgotten existed were shown to me. While my first thought was, “Wow, this person needs a life if she is stalking pictures of me from 6 months ago,” my second one was “Well. This isn’t pretty.” Read More »

[Welcome to my Weekly Love List, a list on all things I love. Because if I love them, well, obviously you should love them too. As the Backstreet Boys song says (and yes, I am actually quoting them) “My Love is All I Have To Give.” So with that throwback, here are this week’s list-worthy things…]

1. Dolce Vita “Ellie” Sandal. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the ankles to wear them. Maybe it’s because it’s currently -5 outside and I would give my left foot to wear them (literally). But either way I love these bad boys….

2. MyPublisher.com. So, a while ago I told you about my love for Shutterfly and their photo books. Well, ladies, I’ve found the Louboutins of photo albums. Mypublisher.com turns your books into coffee table books. And I am convinced there is NO better coffee table book than one filled with your most treasured pics. Think about it: when was the last time your coffee table books were more than just dust/shot glass collectors? Or, more importantly, when was the last time you even had a coffee table book? (Aren’t those tables supposed to be danced on?) Now here is a coffee table book worth l-o-v-ing. Read More »

Miley’s first photo shoot was…slutty.

Melrose Place 2.0 is coming.

Build a fashionable wardrobe on the cheap.

OMG! What if his parents don’t like you!?

Colleges begging for bailout.

Some old dude won Survivor last night.

Give your skin the gift of soybeans.

One university found the ultimate stress reliever for students.

Michael Phelps likes boobs. Clearly.

Woman gets creative on the job hunt.

[College kids are notorious for being poor. And why shouldn’t we be? We take out student loans to pay for private universities, can barely balance a part-time job with our full-time courseload, and the only “balance” we’re familiar with refers to the number of points left on our dining hall cards. Oh, did I mention many of us tend to splurge every extra penny on PBR’s at the campus bar?

If you disagree with everything I just said, you probably don’t need this column. But if you’re nodding along because you’re officially an adult and still don’t know how to manage your money, then you might want to pay attention every week, because I’m going to (try to) get you through this, and make you a successful saver and a wise spender.]

Oh, crap. You just spent your holiday gift budget getting a little too happy at happy hour. You have less than three weeks to select, purchase, and wrap presents for your entire family and close circle of friends. Here are some ideas to keep you out of credit card debt (at least until March).

1. Photos

Classy portraits of yourself are a great, cheap gift for your family members, while buying cheap frames at the dollar store and stuffing them with the most memorable bar nights (that you obviously don’t remember) are great for friends.

If you’re going in the portrait-direction, see if you can hire a photography student to snap your photo for a small fee, and develop the pics in black and white for extra elegance. If you have siblings, go in on the cost of professional photography, and do family portraits. Sure, you’ll cringe every time you see the pics on your mother’s mantle, but on Christmas day, this sentimental gift is a guaranteed tear-jerker. Read More »