Big Brother is watching you, students....

[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 (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), 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 cheating confessions! ) 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!]

Ah, George Orwell, how miserable you made my life in high school. But look, now it’s happening again – except this time it’s not Mr. Orwell’s fault that I’ve got Big Brother on the brain (no, not the TV show… is that still on?). This time it’s Northern Arizona University and their plan to install an attendance system that electronically reads student ID cards to tell if you showed up to your giant lecture course. Yeah, OK, first thing I thought when I heard about this was “so you just have to get a friend to carry your card to class, no big,” but the more I think about it, the more qualms I have.

In the school’s defense, attendance is important and even though we all know it, when that 7:30 alarm goes off, sometimes it’s easy to just ignore that little fact. I know more than one person who lost scholarship money over their grades just because they skipped out on class a few too many times. We should show up to class, but we don’t always, so I can get why the school is trying to step up and actually help (force) its students to do the right thing for themselves. Read More »

The royal GPA f*ck up.

We’ve all done it. Whether it was “I’m too hungover to go to class” semester, or the easy freshman mistake of loving the lack of attendance policy way too much, at one time our GPA has clicked down point-by-point faster than the funds in our checking account after drunkenly opening a tab at the bar.

I may be only a freshman, but I’ve pretty much already declared my major in GPA Sabotage, with a concentration on Accidental Stupidity. Having been such an idiot my first semester of college, I speak from partial experience on the five unfailing ways to destroy your GPA like a Category 5 earthquake.

1. Racking up a big streak of absences for your class. It’s pretty obvi, almost to the point where it seems ridiculous to bring up, but it’s the most effective method for watching your GPA drop like an axe. Keeping up the good fight in your classes is all about resisting the incredibly tempting ability to skip class. Even if there is no attendance policy, chances are extremely good that you don’t want to miss what’s going on. Plus, catching up after a missed class is a massive headache for anyone with a decent course load.

2. Not participating in class. This is kind of a gray area, but for the most part it can be really destructive to your grade in a class if you just waste your time there. Classes are only worth the money they cost if you’re retaining the information presented, and the professor is there to make sure you do just that. Communicating with your professor and participating in class is definitely the way to get the most out of it, and it can make even a 9 AM lecture more enjoyable. Plus, if you make a big mistake in your class, your professor will likely be extremely helpful in getting you back on track knowing that you are invested in the course.

3. Sleeping through class sessions. This is a biggie. It can be actually painful to try and stay awake in class, especially when it’s one of the soulless 8 AM courses. It risks being mind-numbingly dull to stay awake, but if you sleep through class, you’re wasting your time even being there at all. I have definitely used classtime to catch up on some Zs and learned pretty quickly that it’s one mistake you absolutely don’t want to to make.

4. Blowing off studying for exams, or just the exams in general. The best saying I’ve heard about exams is the Murphy’s Law of College Exams: they are always based on the one class session you didn’t attend, and the chapter in the textbook you didn’t read. There is nothing like a screwed college exam to sink you about two letter grades, if not more. Studying is all-important, as is keeping track of your exam schedule so you don’t accidentally miss one. These two things can mean the difference between doing well in a class and scraping to pass.

5. Cheating/ Plagiarizing. It may be incredibly tempting, but as is largely well-known, either of those offenses are automatic one-way streets to being blacklisted from every college, and having your future resume incredibly tainted. Not only will your test or paper be an automatic zero if you’re caught, but your entire college career will be seriously affected by a brief lack of judgment. No test grade is worth the colossal slap on the hand resulting from cheating, and a paper that’s written with someone else’s words isn’t worth the ink you print it with. If you’re tempted to make either of these serious mistakes, resist them. Academic Dishonesty is one phrase you never, ever want associated with your transcripts.

[It doesn’t matter what school you go to, what state it is in, how big it is, whether it is public or private, all girls or coed…there are experiences that all college students share.

No matter how crazy you think your personal situation is, it is not just you. So, let’s bring it all out in the open. Right here. Because you are not alone - we’ve all been there before.]

There are many moments in a college student’s existence that are shared by other students around the globe, but none more common than the All Nighter.

You know on the first day of class that there will be a 12-page paper due this Friday. You highlighted it, and put it in your planner. But as the weeks went by – and you sorta stopped showing up for class – you kept pushing the paper off. “I’ll start it this weekend,” you tell yourself a week before it’s due.

But the weekend comes, and with it comes an impromptu house party at your place Friday night, a long recap/hangover session on Saturday, a birthday party Saturday night and work on Sunday. No time for a paper.

You assure yourself that you will do it a little each night this week, but it takes you until Wednesday to realize that heading to the library with the girls and a bag of Baked Lays is not the best way to be productive. Read More »