As I write this, I am about to embark on my final semester of my college career. Weird, right? It almost seems like yesterday when I was a little freshman moving in to my dorm. Except for the growth part, a lot has changed in these three and a half years. I’ve learned the hardships of picking the right classes and managing my social life and my studies, but it was all worth the ride. It’s cliché, but some say that college is the best four years of your life, and it’s true. They go by in the blink of an eye, so take the time to cherish your college life.

1. Make a Bucket List

While it should be on nearly all seniors’ to-do lists, making a bucket list at the beginning of your college career can help you get to know your campus a lot better. Who knows? If you accidentally stumble upon one of your campus’ landmarks, you not only knocked something off “the list”, but have a great story to go along with it. If your school has a great basketball team, sit in the student section and go to a basketball game. The student section of a sports game has its own little bubble, and that’s where all the excitement is. Whatever is on your list, don’t miss out and start making it happen.

2. Take Advantage of Campus Resources

The thing about college is that it offers a variety of resources that very few students actually take advantage of. From coffee houses with free Wifi to free entry to recreation centers, free printing, and basically anything with the word FREE next to it, be sure to snatch up these opportunities now before you have to pay for the real thing once you enter the real world. Syllabus week is the best time to get freebies from bookstores, so don’t miss out!

3. Learn How to Balance Academics and Activities

This is a pretty simple rule to follow, but sometimes, a freshman’s first semester can get a little out of hand. You’re on your own for the first time without Mom and Dad deciding your every move, so it’s up to you to determine if you’re going to that 10 a.m. class or if you’re going to go out every night. Here’s a handy tip: Go to all of your classes during syllabus week. While you should be attending them all semester long, this way, you can decide whether it’s worth dragging yourself out of bed every morning. And while it’s fun to go out, know your limits and know your deadlines. Don’t go out the night before you have an exam, and instead of pulling all-nighters and cramming, study for an hour a day until you have the material down. Studies have shown that you retain more information the longer you study. Plus, you can still have free time to do whatever else you want.

4. Go to Your Professor’s Office Hours

Like the rule before it, this is another handy tip for freshmen. If you’re stuck on an issue or don’t understand the material from lecture, go to your professor’s office hours as soon as you notice a problem. Professors have taken an hour out of their day to meet with students to help them succeed in the class, so it’s harmless to take an hour out of your day, too. Plus, if you go early on, you can get to know the professor and see what a future exam might be like, and if you take the time to meet with the professor, chances are if you’re on the border for a grade, he or she will bump you up.

5. Have Fun!

Simple and easy. The opportunity to be a young undergraduate only comes once, so live it up to the fullest!

The senior year of college is an emotional roller coaster that you can’t get off of until you cross the stage at graduation. (Then you enter another ride called life and I just haven’t been on that ride long enough to give you the appropriate theme park metaphor…my apologies.) As much as you love your friends and your school and your classes, you’re also freaking out about what you want to do after college and if what you want to do is right. And if you’re anything like me, you’re probably suffering from a killer case of the “what-ifs”.

What if I go to grad school?

What if I move to NYC without a job?

What if my boyfriend breaks up with me?

The what-ifs are never-ending and you’ll find them creeping up during class, while you’re at happy hour and  even while you’re hooking up. It’s a nasty sickness that’s hard to cure. Luckily CollegeFashion has a handy dandy guide to figuring it all out. Check it out here!

Back-to-school is right around the corner, and for many of you, the inevitable final year of college is looming.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
It’s going to be OK.

Heading into your senior year well-prepared (and well-hydrated) makes all the difference, so here’s 9 things to keep in mind before you embark on the beginning of the end:

1. Check on Everything:
First things first, make a meeting with your academic advisor (yes, you have one) and make sure you have all the classes you need to graduate. If not – sign up for them immediately. Don’t wait to take your second required P.E. class until the last semester  — the classes could fill up and leave the only option available something that doesn’t fit with your academic schedule. (Or worse, it could be at 8am on a Friday.) Figure out if you have departmental requirements to fulfill. Find out when deadlines are and what the expectations are. Be aware of every step required towards you wearing your cap and gown and grabbing that diploma at the end of the year.
Read More »

So…big day is almost here.

You ready for the real world?

What are your plans?

If you’re cringing at the very thought of these questions then there’s only one possible explanation: You too are a college senior. You too are caught between college and real life, trying to enjoy the time you have left at college while also trying to make plans for what comes next. You too are frustrated and upset, and unsure. But most importantly you too are badgered daily, no hourly, about all those post college plans. They want to know everything and they want to know it now. But you don’t even know the answers yourself so how can you answer their questions?

Well, lucky for you, I’ve compiled a list of answers for all those pesky questions you’re constantly being bombarded with. They may not be truthful and they may get you a few strange looks but they’ll definitely shut them up.

1. Do you have a job lined up yet?

Currently I’m mulling over a few different offers. MTV wants me on their new reality TV show. But I’m also really tempted by my acceptance to Harvard Law. Then again can Boston compare to that loft they promised me in Manhattan if I went to work for Donald Trump? Eh, maybe I’ll just finally accept Ryan Reynolds’ proposal and spend a few months honeymooning with him. What do you think I should do? Read More »

There are a lot of different illness associated with different times of the year. There’s flu season in the winter. Allergy season in the spring. Sunburns in the summer. But around early April and May a different disease starts to take hold, and it goes after a very specific group.

College seniors.

It’s serious and it spread quickly. But the problem is the symptoms can at first appear so subtle that college students may not even notice they have them. Their regular behavior is simply heightened. So when going about their normal, every day lives they don’t even realize that they’re actually struggling with senioritis. That’s why they can’t write that paper or concentrate in class. That’s why everything seems impossible. If  you’re a college senior and this, or any of the signs below sound familiar to you, you may be suffering from senioritis. (And no, we don’t recommend looking up your symptoms on WebMD. Just check out our senioritis bucket list instead.)

1. Oversleeping. Your alarm goes off so you press the snooze button. And then you press again. And then again. And then you glance at the clock and realize your class starts in five minutes…and then you roll over and go back to sleep. 

2. The desire to never do anything productive anything again. The other night, instead of watching the movie I was supposed to watch for class I spent the night watching the entire first season of Brothers and Sisters on Netflix instant play. It seemed like an excellent idea at the time.

Read More »

So just like with the very first column I wrote for Surviving Senior Year, it’s taken me a while to figure out what exactly I want to write for this one. My very last one.  Actually I should say it’s “taking me a while” because I really have no idea where this one is going. So bear with me one last time.

When I started this column back in September I was just starting senior year.  I was both excited and terrified at the prospect of having just two semesters left of college, and now, two months away from the end of college, I’m just as excited and just as terrified. That much hasn’t changed. But a lot has changed.

I started this year with more responsibility and less time than I’ve ever had. And lots and lots of things that I wanted to accomplish, things I felt I needed to accomplish. Take the GRE. Write a senior thesis. Keep up my GPA. Remain involved in all of my extracurriculars. And on top of that I really wanted to make sure that I didn’t lose sight of my social life. I was determined to keep all aspects of my life in perfect balance. I was determined to figure it all out. I was determined to find answers, to figure out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to do it. But even though I accomplished pretty much all of my goals, I’m still no closer to knowing what’s going to come next.

I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now. I don’t know what path my career will take. I don’t know if and when I’ll go to grad school. I don’t know if I’ll become a writer or a wizard. I don’t know if I’ll ever find the perfect guy or the perfect pair of pumps. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to go to Greece…or if the closet I’ll get to that ancient city is watching Mamma Mia. Because senior year hasn’t given me the answers to my future. I don’t know any more about that than I did when I started. But I do know a few other things.

Read More »

So if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I’m a bit of an organizational freak. I like order, neatness, alphabetizing things by last name and putting things in chronological order. I don’t like messes and I don’t like excess (unless we’re talking about clothes), so needless to say, spring cleaning is one of my favorite pastimes.

But this year I won’t just be doing the regular kind of spring cleaning, I’ll be spring cleaning my entire college life.  I’m not really a pack rat but I do like to be prepared, so I haven’t thrown much away over the past four years. And no, I’m not talking old magazines and candy wrappers that would make me the perfect candidate for Hoarders, I’m talking hard copies of papers, and notes from my freshman year classes. But as binder after binder and book after book take up more space than I’d like, I’ve found it’s time to finally clean it all out.

So I did. I went through four years worth of college classes in one day, getting rid of the stuff I will never use again, like the notes from my microbiology class last semester, and hanging onto the stuff I may actually want to peruse again, like a book of Carson McCullers short stories, feminist fairy tales, and obscure post colonial novels that I just can’t get enough of. I tossed the astronomy notes, and the ancient philosophy and the anthropology, but I did keep the literary theory book if only because I’m still using it this semester and because I do plan on burning it once this course is over. Parts of it were cathartic, parts of it were said, but mostly, it was nostalgic.

Read More »

So last week, I had a bit of a meltdown. A pre-grad crisis if you will, freaking out about what comes next before I even get there. So this week, I’m trying to fix that in the best way I know how. By eating lots of ice cream and watching old episodes of Gossip Girl making a list. But not just any list, a list of post-grad goals for myself. They’re rather vague but they are things worth working towards, things that I actually want to achieve someday.

1. Find a job that makes me happy. I double majored in English Literature and Philosophy. Not exactly majors that have a set career path. And so in the past four years I’ve contemplated everything from lawyer to information technology assistant to Food Network star (mostly just so I could co-host with Bobby Flay) and I’m really no closer to figuring out where I’m going to end up. But even if I have to take a few starter jobs along the way I am eventually going to choose a career that makes me happy, whatever that may be.

2. Get my masters. I’m not sure if I’ll be starting grad school in the fall or not, but I do know that I will be attending at some point. And not just because some statistic somewhere says that some number of people who get their masters are some percentage more likely to make a higher salary (I want to write…who am I kidding, anyway), but because it’s a personal goal of mine. I’ve always been a lover of learning, and even though I’ve had my fair share of complaints about classes this year, when it comes down to it all, I really do enjoy it. So I want to get my masters. At some point.

Read More »

I’m having a pre-post-grad crisis.

Which is probably not a term you’ve heard all that often, especially since I’m 90% sure that I just made it up. So let me explain. The symptoms are not all that different from a post-grad crisis, except I’m not actually a post-grad yet. I’m a senior, a few months from graduation and I have absolutely no idea what comes next. And despite my many, many promises that I wasn’t going to worry or care or wonder, I can’t help myself. I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it a lot. And I don’t know what to do.

Right about now you’re thinking something like, you and every other 21-year-old out there. And you’d probably be right. No one really knows what they’re doing or where they are going straight out of college. But for the sake of this column I’m going to be the self centered twenty-something the world is always making our generation out to be anyway and I’m going to complain about my problem like I’m the first and only person to ever graduate college.

You’ve been warned.

This idea is something I’ve touched on earlier in this column, but I haven’t really had much time to contemplate it. Last semester was really, really busy. So busy that I almost forgot what college was all about, so much that I forgot how to enjoy myself. But this semester, that hasn’t been the case. Things have calmed down. I’ve calmed down. But all this free time has obviously left me with too much time to think. Because  I. AM. FREAKING. OUT. Read More »

Just last February, I was planning my 21^st birthday party. Now, I’m facing 22 (or as I like to call it 21+1) straight on. Even though the last twelve months have gone by, it feels like just yesterday I was indulging in jello shots and margaritas. For my 21st. Because just yesterday I was indulging in jello shots and margaritas.

Looking back, though, much has happened in the past year. It seems I’ve learned a lot while Ke$ha put a dollar sign in her name and started brushing her teeth with a “bottle of Jack,” John Mayer proclaimed that he is on the search for “the Joshua Tree of vaginas,” and the Jersey Shore became a national phenomenon.

So here (in no particular order) is what I know for certain after turning 21. Perhaps you youngsters can take a few things from this:

1. Friendships should make you happy — not pissed off : Friends should be so much more than people you dance on tables with and dish about the weekend to. They should be there for you, and you should be there for them. They also should not steal your alcohol on your 21^st birthday and make out with the fraternity guy, all while puking as your boyfriend helps take care of them.

2. Raincoats are amazing: They are often understated and overwhelmingly overlooked when it comes to fashion. But even if they aren’t fashionable, really, you can’t complain when that slicker keeps your from frizzing. Without a rain jacket I wouldn’t have made it through the summer in London. And I think it actually kept me going to class this past semester. Why didn’t I realize this sooner? It doesn’t matter if you have a basic from Lands End or a super sexy trench from Dillards, just get one!

3. Go to the gym: Surprisingly enough, it is worth your time. Who knew? I sure didn’t, until I started going religiously with my boyfriend back in September. If you actually go to the gym and do more than hang out on the treadmill and elliptical for thirty minutes, you can see results. Plus, it teaches you patience on so many different levels.

Read More »