What’s the fundamental lesson they teach you in Econ? Why, supply and demand of course. More of a product, means less of a demand, while less of that exact same product causes people to want it like whoa. Now apply that to dating. It’s pure genius: limit your supply, and the guys will be sure to demand. These guys seem to think this is the perfect formula for them in achieving absolute success in the dating world. But hello, not to be obvious but I think Beyoncé said it best: Who runs the world? GIRLS!

So ladies, this is for you, your Intro to Supply & Demand.

Lesson 1: Sex

For the new guy in your life, here’s a way to keep things exciting. When it comes to sex, play hard to get (not too hard though. Guys like a chase, but they don’t want to feel like it’s never going to happen between the two of you.) When you finally do give up the goods, switch it up each time. Showers, couches, parks and movie theaters make for great spur-of-the-moment sex.  Each time you make him wait, he’ll come begging even harder. Remember, spontaneity is sexy!

For the longtime love: uh, if you suddenly begin to deny him the goods, he might suspect something’s wrong. Or worse, he might ditch you for that new spontaneous girl (see above).

Lesson 2: Availability

For the new guy in your life: Don’t make yourself too available. You’re a busy girl with a life of your own, now’s not the time to begin clearing your schedule for a guy you just met. You know how guys love leaving us girls waiting by the phone? It’s time for you to play that role. If you seem like your time is high in demand, he’ll be eager to get his share of your time.

For the longtime lover: You’ve been available enough to maintain this relationship for this long, don’t mess that up now by making yourself less available. Spending time together is key to maintaining a successful relationship, so keep it up.

Lesson 3: Social Life

For the new guy in your life: Here’s another “limit your supply and the guys will come demanding” guideline. You have your own friends and you have your own social life. The new guy needs to know that. Just like he’s not expecting you to tag along with him and his friends, you’re also anticipating that he’ll be understanding when you just want to have some girl time. When you do finally decide to hang around each other’s friends, it’ll be refreshing. And when you finally come back together after having been apart for some time, it’ll be all the more worthwhile.

For the longtime lover: Same rules apply. Bringing your signif other to hang out with your friends every now and again is totally fine, but you don’t want to end up being that girl that doesn’t get invited anywhere because your friends know your boyfriend will be attached at your hip.

Here’s a quick review:

You (minus) your supply (plus) some sex appeal = an increase in guy’s demand.

Easy huh? Limit your supply and the guy’s demand will increase. It’s almost like tricking him into thinking you’re some sort of hot commodity, LOL!

This is probably the simplest sort of economics, ever. I wish they would’ve taught us this back in…I don’t know, high school?

Got some college questions? Unsure of a decision? Worried about rooming blind this Fall? Just wanna chat it up with some really awesome chics?

Question:
Next month will be my second year at my new college. This past semester I didn’t do anything fun. I was miserable and studied the whole time. I came out with a 3.8 but no new friends. How can I balance schoolwork and get out and meet people at the same time?

GPA Girl:
Story of my life . . . haha, no, just kidding. Well, sort of. I also studied almost all the time, but so did my friends, so I think it evened out. You are perceptive to realize that you need to strike a balance between your social life and your academics, and it’s wonderful that you place both things as such high priorities right now. Friends and relationships from college are just as valuable (and often more valuable) than the grades you get there, so I wouldn’t want to see you miserable but acing every test for another semester. Have you considered signing up for some clubs, activities, or intramural teams? Busy Bee might have more to say about that. Don’t go overboard and start attending every single thing on campus, but going to events that feature your hobbies is a surefire way to meet new people who share the same interests. If you can manage to get on the e-mail lists for a bunch of different campus activities, you can pick and choose those that fit with your schedule and start meeting people that way. Also, it’s totally possible to meet new friends and study at the same time. Ask interesting people from your courses to form a study group, or ask your current friends to study with you on a standing weekly date and bring their friends along as well. Go out for dinner or coffee beforehand and chat with the new people who come along. Good luck!

Party Girl:
Believe it or not, I was once in the same position as you are now. However, as you can see, I got through it (with flying colors, if I do say so myself). The trick is time management. Since my dorky days, I’ve become an excellent planner. In fact, I always have a planner with me. Seriously – that thing has saved my life (well, my social life) on more than one occassion. I decided that studying couldn’t dominate my life anymore, so I made out a strict schedule of classes, study times, and “break” times. I kept everything separate from each other (no drinking while studying and certainly no studying at the bar) and after a while, it became second nature. Of course, there were a couple times where I had to give up a sweet-ass party to cram for an exam (and times when I blew off a night class to catch Happy Hour). There’s always gonna be some give and take during college (despite my prayers, there’s no way you can get a 4.0 and binge drink every weekend). Hopefully, it won’t be all give this year for you!

Busy Bee:
Girl, I know EXACTLY how you feel. Sometimes we are so caught up trying to get amazing grades and beefing up that resume that we often forget about our social lives. I don’t know what your college is like, but at my school, it’s hard to make friends because people are always bustling in and out of class. In addition, I didn’t live on campus my first year of college so I missed out on the late nights and campus diner experiences. If you are living on campus next year, try getting to know your floor mates well. Also, make it a goal to befriend at LEAST one person in each class. That way, even if you don’t become BFF’s with them, it’ll be nice to have someone cover notes for you on days you want to sleep in. Plus, studies say that more friends mean better grades!

To answer your question, the best way to balance school work and friends is to understand time management. Know your capabilities – how much work can you do before you burn out? How much time can you allot for friends before you start stressing about unfinished school work? If you know your limits, then you can successfully study and party.
Lastly, understand that not everyone you meet will become your best friend. There are some interesting characters you will meet in college. Whether or not you make “friends” is not the big deal – just focus on getting yourself out there, meeting people, and knowing which hang-outs are worth your time.

Oh…and sometimes “fun” doesn’t have to mean hanging out with people. Sometimes, it’s allowing yourself shopping days, exploring the city, or finding a hobby that you absolutely enjoy. Just make sure you plan ahead and give yourself a much needed break sometimes!

Mmmm. Irish Coffee should fix this right up!

It’s no secret that much of the college social life revolves around drinking. We drink to celebrate, mourn, express loyalty to our football teams, to ease boredom, hell,  some people drink to make homework a little more interesting (no, no one else does that?).  Well, all that super fun drinking  sometimes results in not-so-fun consequences: mysterious bruises, ruined shoes, hours’ worth of un-tagging on Facebook, that dude lying next to you, and the raging, horrific hangover trying to escape your brain by splitting it open.

What’s a girl to do? Your mind jumps to Gatorade (don’t have any), Egg McMuffins (dammit, it’s past 10:30!) and water (your Brita pitcher is full of hunch punch) before remembering that bottle of Bloody Mary mix in the back of the fridge. Should you suck it up, stir in some vodka and take a hair of the dog that bit you?

Nope.

The phrase itself refers to an old school Rabies cure (literally, they would place a hair of the dog that bit you in the wound), but has evolved into the idea that if you drink a small amount of whatever got you into this hung-over state, you’ll feel better. It didn’t work for rabies, and it won’t work for your hangover.

A hangover results because of the dehydrating effect alcohol has on your body. Remember what we learned about breaking the seal? Alcohol suppresses your brain’s ability to create anti-diuretic hormones, so you lose essential water, electrolytes, salts and glucose via bathroom breaks. The morning after, your body is frantically trying to replenish all that lost hydration, resulting in fatigue, headache, nausea, etc. These symptoms get worse as your body tries to rid all alcohol from its system, leading some to believe that all this hangover nonsense could be cured by simply drinking more.

Unfortunately, more alcohol will only postpone your hangover. It might temporarily relieve some of the symptoms of a hangover (and keep you in those beer goggles until the boy actually leaves), but when it wears off your body will still have to recover, only now it your liver has extra toxins to break down and remove. So in the end, your headache and nausea will probably be worsened by more alcohol, definitely not relieved.

The best cure for a hangover (besides, you know, not drinking in the first place) is to drink plenty of water to fight dehydration, some Gatorade or Powerade to replace electrolytes, lots of rest, and at least 4 hours worth of mind numbing TV, preferably Real Housewives or True Hollywood Stories, but whatever’s on VH1 will do in a pinch.

It’s weird, I know, but FB is like peanut butter and jelly: you must be some sort of freak if you’ve never tried it. (OK, or you have some severe allergy, but that doesn’t fit with my analogy so let’s move on.) Facebook is at the epicenter of our generation’s world, so anyone who isn’t on there is weird, right? I mean, how do you live without Facebook?

How do you learn about people?
See pictures?
Know what’s going on in your friends’ lives?!
Update everyone on your own life without tons and tons of phone calls?

But maybe I’m not so weird for feeling this way. Matthew Myron, an author who recently studied online privacy, has gone as far as saying that not being on Facebook is social suicide. ”Many people feel they have to be a part of Facebook to socialize. Such sites are the modern equivalent of a mobile phone. They have grown into fashion accessories and they are a must-have for people who don’t want to be social outcasts.”

Myron speaks mostly in regards to status updates and wall posts, but his point is even truer than he knows. When people have parties, they invite guests via Facebook. When people have birthdays, we send them messages (and are notified!) via Facebook. When people have anything to say, we say it all on Facebook.

And when someone doesn’t have Facebook, we think they are freaks hiding something.

Are those things even replacements for in-person chats or phone conversations?  Is someone’s profile a fair way to judge them? Probably not, but that is how we roll in “generation me” and anyone who is not a part of that will be left behind and out of the know when it comes to weekend ragers.

We may not want to admit it, but Facebook is a huge part of (and maybe the basis of) our social lives in college. Not being on there might be worse for your social status than being “that girl” at a party or keeping your door closed the first week of freshman year. Or even being that annoying status updater who lets everyone know where they are at every possible second/puts up ambiguous statements that are just begging for attention. Ugh, those people are annoying.

But at least I can Facebook-stalk them.

Seriously, even my mom has FB. If you don’t, you barely exist to me.

What do you think?

Now that I’m halfway done with my college career (a pretty cushy place to be, considering I have two more years before the real world), I anticipate all the bright eyed and bushy tailed freshmen about to invade the dorms and use fake-id’s at all my favorite bars. Putting myself in their shoes, I wish that someone had been there to give me advice for my college career (all I got was my Mom telling me not to hook up with any fraternity boys until Spring semester). So I dove in head first and learned a few lessons of my own.

I learned the value of my dry erase board to my social life, I learned that “attendance optional” classes are not always a good thing. I learned that I should always have an assortment of costumes readily available, and that sharing drinks with my friends meant sharing drinks with whoever they made out with (and whoever they made out with…) All of these were very important lessons, and I’d like to share some of the pearls of wisdom I gained my freshman year.

College is not as big a place as you think.

It was easy to assume that a huge new campus meant instant anonymity. Therefore it was also very easy to assume that taking 6 tequila shots, throwing up underneath a bar stool, and going home with some guy in a sombrero at my first college Mexican restaurant experience would have no repercussions. Unfortunately, my hangover proved otherwise, as did the nickname “El Puke Capitan” that followed me around for the rest of my freshman summer. Oh, and Senor Sombrero? In the same section as me for Social Problems that Fall. Bottom line: college is big, but it ain’t that big.

You will not wake up at 7, make a power smoothie, hit the gym, shower then go to your 9 am class. Ever.

Come December of my freshman year, I realized what a mature, responsible and “together” young woman I had become (making your own doctor appointments can have that effect). So, I decided that I’d be way more productive and on top of shiz if I made all my Spring M, W, F classes at 9 am. That way I’d have time to wake up, eat a healthy breakfast and listen to CNN podcasts on my way to hot yoga. After that I’d hit the showers and head off to my first class with a post-workout glow. Unfortunately, that post-workout glow was more like post- flip cup nausea, the closest I got to a healthy breakfast was O.J. with my McMuffin, and I never did make it to the gym. More importantly, I very rarely made it to those early classes. Bottom line: prioritize school over partying, but don’t kid yourself about your ability to turn down nickel beers at your favorite bar. When you have the chance to take a later class, just do it.

If you have the opportunity to bring a big bag out, pack a survival kit.

Clutches are cute, and obviously the more practical handbag option for a night of debauchery, but if you can get away with a monster bag, bring that bad boy out. That way, you can pack a toothbrush, flip flops, Soffes and the proper toiletries to decrease the embarrassment level on your walk of shame. Of course the easiest way to avoid the W.O.S. is not to shack with randos, but if I learned anything my freshman year, it’s that those random nights of terrible decision making will occur. Bonus: you can pack your own condom preference. Her Pleasure, anyone?

If your future roommate shows signs of insanity, it may be time to break the lease.

After successfully surviving two semesters of random roommate pairing, I was extremely excited to get my first apartment my sophomore year and signed a lease with two friends from home and one of their friends. We planned how we would decorate our bedrooms and living room and thought of all the themed dinner/drink nights we would have at our cute little kitchen table. I thought that my new roomies would be GREAT, but looking back, the signs were all there. I realized that saying my third roommate’s name earned me some strange, almost piteous looks from mutual friends. I heard more about her spring break hookups from JuicyCampus than I did from her. She started a fist fight and pressed charges against the other girl.

Yeah, in retrospect I probably would have reevaluated my roommate choice, it would have saved me a broken front window that she kicked in, a whole bunch of food that she ate, hours of sleep lost listening to screaming matches between her and others, and a whole bunch of Claritin from the time she bought a cat (even though my other roomies and I are allergic and our apt. is pet free!) At least in the future I know to make roomie decisions a little more carefully…

Get to Know Your Profs and T.A.’s

Fresh out of high school, the idea of spending any extra face time with a teacher seemed a little…lame. But then I realized that seeing a teacher twice a week (along with 200 other students) would not allow them to ever know who I was (or know that I was their favorite student ever), so I started going to office hours. Professors are always willing to clarify assignments, and LOVE discussing their lecture material (most of them would gladly continue talking long after their hour and 15 minutes is up) and appreciate you being proactive about your grades. T.A.’s like this kind of meeting because it’s less formal than their classroom setting and they can level with you as a peer. Also, it shows them you’re interested in what they have to say. A personal relationship with your professor or T.A. will come in handy when you are running late on an assignment, need extra help, or earn an 89.45% in their class and need an opportunity for extra credit.

Keep your Facebook clean.

When I look back on my freshman year, I look back in neatly captioned and tagged albums via my profile. The first look back last summer, after completion of my first year at college, made me realize that I had some major deleting and de-tagging to do. While those pics of me impressively funnelling or taking ice-luge shots with my besties show my friends I can outdrink them, I didn’t want to know what they would show the family I babysat for if they ever saw. So I started deleting. Goodbye Pikeboy Lingerie Party pics, so long drunk wheelbarrow race to the stadium on gameday, no more 47 second kegstand (47 seconds!!). Yes I will miss these pictures, but they’re still on my hard drive, and now there are no creepy old men enjoying my creative use of Saran Wrap for anything-but-clothes parties. Even better? Employers, professors, and my friends’ parents can judge me based on PG-rated pics. Bottom line: put down the Solo before you say cheese, and you’ll be much happier you did.

Okay, so I guess I let Hollywood feed me that stereotype.

However, once I started freshman year I started meeting some great girls (who were none of those stereotypical adjectives) and who were also in sororities. The contrast baffled me, so I decided to investigate.

Sororities are pretty big on my campus and something like 35% of girls go Greek. That fact and all the nice girls I had met led me to sign myself up for the 2 week long process of rush. My floor friends all signed up too, but I was still pretty iffy about the idea. I told a few home friends and their reaction was…well less than enthusiastic. I got responses like; “Are you serious?” “Why would you do that to yourself?” and “You are not a sorority girl!” Even my mom, who went Greek in college, said that it might not be for me. These people were the people that knew me best, so I thought that they were probably right, and I prepared to pull my name off the list of about 700 girls.

I deliberated for a while and ended up setting everyone else’s input aside (where it should have been in the first place). While my friends meant well, what did any of them know about being Greek? It is simply impossible to judge such a huge population of college girls based on Legally Blonde. So I kept my name on the rush list, for the primary reason that if I backed out before I had given it a fair shot, I knew I would feel regret and always wonder “what if.”

So I rushed, which at my school is literally rushing around. You go from house to house, sometimes in heels, meeting tons of girls. There are four rounds, “Go Greek”, “House Tours”, “Philanthropy”, and “Preference Rounds”. At the end of each round you rank the houses and they, in turn, rank all the “rushees.” Not gonna lie: it was a little nerve-wracking and exhausting. But as I walked around the houses and met the girls it became easy to sense where I belonged and where I didn’t quite feel comfortable.

In the end I picked a house and they picked me and I got to meet so many people that I would not have otherwise. People that are now my best friends and sisters. At such a big school, going Greek provided me with a smaller circle, girls to have fun with and girls to study with, girls to take care of me when I needed help and a place to feel comfortable.

Rush, of course, doesn’t turn out the same for everyone. Some people find houses, others don’t. I have a friend who regretted not rushing freshman year and rushed as a sophomore. In the end she dropped out of rush, but at least she could now say with certainty that it wasn’t for her. Even if you rush and end up not liking it you will meet so many more people. You could meet girls you like and choose to be friends with, but not sisters with, after the process. Or you could meet girls that dislike rush just as much as you end up bonding over disdain for the process. Or you could rush and find a sorority that you want to be a part of. You could find yourself a place where you are comfortable and happy, and what could be better than that?

Either way, I encourage rushing because it’s something you don’t get to re-do later in life. Give it a shot and you’ll be regret-free either way.

Bored? Home on a Saturday night? Maybe watching the Olympics, maybe eating ice cream with a fork?

Not everyone can go out every weekend. Even CC knows that. If, like us, you’re around tonight, IM CollegeCandy27 from 9-10pm to shoot the sh*t, ask questions…commiserate on the lack of a social life…whatev.

Is it true though? Or are the tabloids just running exaggerated fantasies to harpoon mass appeal? It’s hard to know because these grandiose lifestyles are perpetuated by the attention drawn to them (unless the celebrity is actually talented). Case in point — the Kardashian sex tape.

Bad publicity is good publicity, I suppose… especially for the venues that become associated with celebrity attendance (who doesn’t want to go to places where you might see a rockstar in a bar fight or catch Paris Hilton stripping down to… well… a slightly more naked version of her usual self?).

When talking about club publicity, nothing turns up the temp on a particular venue more than the drug habits of the celebrities. The scandalous behaviors of one Miss Britney Spears has made headlines for a variety of clubs in New York including an all time personal favorite, Marquee. Yes, she has been caught using drugs in the public bathrooms all around town and she’s not the only one. The question then becomes, of course, how many drugs are being done in these places? Certainly you run a high risk (pun intended) of being caught abusing drugs if you are a celebrity, but what about us ordinary folk? Are drugs swimming through the clubs as the tabloids would have us believe?

The answer is YES. I would never consider myself a drug abuser, but I know first hand that almost every club I have been to has it’s own underground microcosmic drug scene. Club Stereo was closed last year after several cocaine busts, though this came as no shock as Stereo was known for being “pot friendly” and leaving the club was like opening the Scoobie Doo van (smoke pouring out). Tenjune turns the other cheek when it comes to smoking the reefer in the VIP section and won’t ask why there are so many girls leaving the bathroom with runny noses. The real shocker comes from Le Souk where I witnessed some special k being snorted in the wide open.

I have also witnessed people getting arrested. Again, Club Stereo, you win in this department with flying colors. On two — no three occasions I witnessed drug raids there, but in the end, drug use was far far more frequent than the arrests that were made. This can probably be said true for almost any club and can be said especially true for celebrities. Amongst my celebrity encounters few involved sobriety (or much respect for, I dunno… THE LAW). Indeed, the Studio 54 mentality lives on in places like Bungalow 8 (where you might just order “a rum and coke.. hold the rum”).

These scenes are often under the radar of the public because of tight security. It’s nearly impossible to get in unless you know someone, ARE a celebrity or (at the very least) have your very own assistant. Places rarely have to answer to the law because undercover cops simply do not fit the demographic of these super-dooper (more like super-doper) high-end venues.

This doesn’t mean that the celebrity lives we read about aren’t embellished to perfection, but it certainly adds validity to the stories. The truth of the matter is, we aren’t living lives so separate from those we read about and if anything can be learned from the tabloids, it’s two things: 1) where the drugs are 2) where people get caught doing them.

I know it’s scary to tread social waters sans the company of twenty of your best best friends, but take a second to consider some people of the moment and their preferred going-out decorum. Lindsay: always with an entourage. Result? Rehab. Britney: entourage. Result: rehab. Paris: entourage. Result: jail.

On the other side of the coin, you have cute, chic couplets of girls who travel lightly with people they actually might have genuine relationships with. There are the stalwart Olsens, the original, authentic friend – twins, cool as the day is long. New on the block is the dynamic duo of Keira Knightly and Sienna Miller, who make quite a complimentary and fine – boned couple (and are so close that they are reportedly shopping for vacation homes near each other).

These days, it’s almost better to go out with a hot girl rather than a hot guy (and the hot girl will always call you the next day to repeat the process, and then some). So free yourself from your wolfpack, find a friend who is willing to brave the crowds with you and you alone, nonchalantly coordinate your outfits and watch your lives change for the better.

In college I went to frat parties and had a boyfriend. My friends and I threw theme parties and keg parties and could kick ass at flip cup and beer pong. I had guys spend the night. In those ways, I did have the traditional college experience.

We also have Fall Fest, a sort of homecoming/ class competition where classes were cancelled and we drink for practically 48 hours straight. I have chilled with alumnae well into their eighties and nineties. My religion professor choked up when we hugged goodbye. I could take my favorite recipes to the dining hall and they would make them. I used to take coffee breaks with the cleaning lady. And I went to school with 800 girls. So in these respects, my college experience was completely untraditional.

We already know from Abigail that enrollment in women’s colleges are dropping. And yes, they were initially started to give women the opportunity of an education. But women’s colleges, just like all colleges, have morphed into something completely different than they were 235 years ago (When Salem, America’s first educational institution for women, was founded). I highly doubt the founders of all our prestigious institutions took into account how high the school’s party ranking would be or the success of their football team. Back then, wasn’t the point to receive an education?

Let me break it down for you (since who wants to read a study during summer break anyways?). Compared to women at co-ed schools:

• We are more engaged in class
• We collaborate more with students outside of class and tutor other students
• We give support for fields where women are underrepresented
• We are more likely to be mentored
• We encourage, support and understand diversity
• We are more likely to ‘engage in integrative activities that lead to deep learning’
• We are closer to faculty
• We have more opportunities for participation and student leadership
• We are more likely to be involved in student life
• We are encouraged to realize our potential

Each of the points above was true to my college experience. AND I had a sex life. Sure, same sex schools aren’t for everyone. But they should be an option that is considered. The lack of one sex doesn’t mean your sex or social life will suffer. So really, what is there to lose?