Since it’s that time of year, the time for choosing colleges (and for some, leaving college) Jezebel has decided to depart some wisdom on all the high school senior hopefuls out here, asking them to really think about what they want out of there college experience, about why they’re choosing the schools they’re choosing, and the effects those choices will have on their college careers.

Well, their great advice has inspired me to give a little advice of my own. Less about choosing a college, and more about the things you should remember once you get there, about how to bridge that gap between college and the real world, and how to make the most of your opportunities while you still have them.

I mean it’s not all boys, beer, and parties (even though those are important too), so here are a few things I wish I knew when I was a mere freshman.

1. You’ll change your major at least once. Everyone always told me this, but I would just shake my head at them and laugh. Not me, I knew what I wanted to major in. I loved to read and to write. I was going to be an English major. But even I eventually had a moment of doubt. The entire second semester of my freshman year into the summer before my sophomore I was convinced I would be changing my major to information systems. That seemed like a far more practical choice with better options for post-grad jobs. Granted I eventually realized I was not made to be an information systems major and found my way back to English (and later, Philosophy) but I was so concerned with trying to pick a major that I didn’t even realize that… Read More »

It’s that time of year during which my peers and I are go crazy trying to prepare for upcoming midterms, lab practicals, 10-page essays, and other ultra stressful, all-nighter inclining assignments.  Although I am not pre-med, almost everyone in my classes is (it’s the sad reality of being a nutrition major) and their academic stress and competitiveness can be contagious if one is not careful. And it doesn’t help that I attend Cornell University, a school known for it’s abnormally high levels of competitiveness amongst students, depression and suicide.

With school pressures up the wazoo paired with the changing of the seasons, it’s understandable that my peers and I might not be as happy as we could be.  So, the fact that my school is so demanding and does have such a high rate of suicide brings me to the topic of this article: how to obtain a whopping dose of happiness the natural way.

1)   Light in the morning and darkness in the evening is just the best for saying sayonara to the blues. Make sure to get some rays of sunshiny goodness in the morning (as close to dawn as possible) to prevent depression and to treat depression if you’ve got it.  It is now known that light therapy is wondrous for treating all types of mood disorders, not just Seasonal Affective Disorder.  A 2005 metanalysis (a study which combines the results of multiple independent studies) of bright light therapy for depression found that “bright light treatments are efficacious, with effects equivalent to those in most antidepressant pharmacotherapy trials.”  Woot! That means bright morning light works just as well as antidepressant medications, but with no side effects!

On the same note, don’t go all Edward Cullen on yourself  (sorry Twilight haters) and not get any sleep.  Staying up late or pulling an all-nighter is pretty much equivalent to just asking moodiness to come find you.   Not only this, but studies show that staying up late makes you more inclined to eat late at night, thus increasing the odds of gaining weight, thus making you more inclined to dislike the way you look, thus making you more likely to become unhappy. Read More »

I hate to put people in a group based on stereotypes. Really, I do. I fought it for a long time. But I realized after meeting pre-med after pre-med that the culture of pre-med life makes it impossible to survive unless you’re a certain personality type.

I know I’ll make some people angry out there, but I’ve noticed a few things about the many pre-meds I’ve come across in my time at college. This surely isn’t true of every doctor wannabe out there, but it is a lifestyle and mindset that ensares many a good student.

1. A pre-med is always the one asking “Will this be on the test?” Yup, the pre-med is always the really annoying kid in a class, ignoring the intellectual meat of any discussion. Pre-meds are fixated on performing well by the numbers, of doing well on the test and getting the A, regardless of what they get out of the course. A pre-med’s moves are often calculated just to get the grade rather than stimulate discussion.

2. A pre-med can’t stop talking about grades. “What did you get on the exam?” “What do you think the curve will be like?” “Man, I was studying ALL last night.” “I’ve got to get an A in this course if I want to go to so-and-so med school.” It can rapidly get exhausting to chat with a pre-med. They can’t stop talking about doing well on exams and actually getting into med school — their singular obsession. They don’t want to talk about literature, art, or culture. They only want to talk about themselves and that big exam coming up. Read More »

I was pre-med once. I had visions of being Dr. K and white labcoats (which you can buy at any university bookstore for Halloween… please note that medical supplies are non-returnable) dancing in my little blonde head. I had my 8 semesters broken down into manageable-ish class loads before I turned 19. I went through labs and calculus and was finally thwarted, my dreams all but crushed, by organic chemistry, one of the more infamous weeder courses at my undergrad university.

Orgo was my wake-up call. There was one exam where I literally laughed the entire two hours (crying wouldn’t help and there was no way I was passing). When the curve was being set by less than 30% scored on a test, and no matter how many hours I kept my head dutifully in my books, I decided to bow out gracefully. It wasn’t worth feeling like a moron and beating myself up anymore. At the end of the day, I was happiest reading, analyzing, writing, as opposed to drawing benzene rings. And I was pretty damn good at it. (In college. Judge as you deem fit at present.)

This is NOT to say that people who stick through courses like these, no matter how much they hate them, are wrong in doing so. Au contraire, dear readers. If you can see the big picture and are content knowing that your hard work will make for a better, happier future, stick with it by all means. Ultimately, no one but you knows what’s going to be best for your future, not your parents, your friends, or your advisor. Read More »

Imagine being told you had 6 weeks to live.

Now imagine knowing that if you lived anywhere other than Africa, you could probably be cured.

Imagine being 14 years old and knowing this.

Meet Felix Yeboah, a Ghanaian teenager with chronic kidney failure.

On Sunday, March 3, in a life-saving emergency operation, Felix received his father’s kidney at the University Hospital in Birmingham, UK, care of Transplant Links, an organization of experienced kidney transplant doctors who volunteer their time and abilities in countries like Ghana.

According to an article in a Ghanian newspaper from August 2006, kidney failure in Ghana forms 35% of medical admissions. Out of the 5000-8000 patients in Ghana, only 35 received haemodialysis (a nessary procedure to prevent total kidney failure) per year! As of the time of that article, there were 17 haemodialysis machines in the entire country.

According to the Transplant Links website, in some African countries, HIV/AIDS is more treatable than Kidney Failure. Read More »