How to get the most out of Greek life

5 easy ways to keep cash in your wallet this summer

Important questions to ask your future roommate before you move in

How to take back your bedroom for the summer break

Why your love life and finances are related

Some lesser known drinking games you need to try

The playlist you need for this summer

Why being back home is not all fun and games

Should you use a backpack in college??

How to deal with work screw ups

Lesson 23: Summer and Single Go Hand in Hand

There’s nothing like finals time to stress you out enough to make you forget that your last few dates were total flops. Caught up in the chaos of studying for a cumulative exam created by the most cruel of professors, there is a sigh of relief in knowing that your single life is the last thing on your mind, if only for a week. But what’s a girl to do with a suddenly cleared up summer schedule and no summer romance lined up?

First things first, do what makes you happy. This isn’t the summer before your senior year in high school when all you and your girlfriends did all summer was hang out at the skate park watching the same lame guys from school hook ollies and talk about the NBA playoffs. In college, so much of our school year is spent doing things for others – sororities, your loser ex-boyfriend, professors who refuse to acknowledge that their class isn’t the only one you’re taking – but the summer is the one time that is truly ours to do whatever we want. The best thing you can do for the three months of sweet respite before fall and it’s accompanying stresses barge back into your life is take this time for yourself and make it your own.

In true Single Girl Society fashion, to make your summer truly your own, you’ve got to give up the notion of securing a summer romance the way pretty much every Freddie Prinze Jr. movie taught us to do. The whole whimsy and appeal behind a summer romance is that it’s slightly unexpected and how exactly do you plan to achieve that if you’re using your potential suitors’ Facebook statuses to decide who’ll be where this summer? Summer romances are great, but planning them (when you probably should be using that time for yourself instead) doesn’t make them a reality. So why waste all that time on somebody you could potentially love when you could be spending it on a life you really love?

If you’re leaving town this summer, make the most of it. Throw yourself in a completely new environment and soak it up! If you’re planning on picking up a summer job, pick something you don’t normally go for. Always been the girl with a retail job?  Try waitressing instead this summer. Yeah, you could hate it, but then again you could meet some really great new friends and end up loving it. In order to give yourself a chance this summer, don’t be afraid to branch out past your comfort zone. The best part? Even if you’re going back to your hometown for the summer, you don’t have to stray too far to get out of your comfort zone; simply pick up a job or volunteer work someplace new to you.

If you’ve got the means to travel this summer, whether it’s around your hometown or across the world, take advantage of your free time with friends and a little help from sites like Groupon and Living Social, or ride solo and fully submerge yourself in someplace new. By switching things up this summer, you’re opening the doors, not just to new friends or a summer romance, but to the parts of yourself you haven’t discovered yet.

Being single can get pretty boring if you don’t allow yourself to experience a change every once in a while. In college, summer is the perfect time to shake things up. Summer is the perfect time to remind yourself that being single is not a rut between boyfriends, it’s a chance for your to realize that being single means total freedom to try to become someone new, whether you’re just changing your go-to pedicure color or your entire outlook on life.

Got it? Feel empowered? Good. Now get the first 22 rules of the Single Girl Society right here.

You finished your last exam early and, after waiting for someone else to turn theirs in (you don’t want to be first!), ran down the steps of that lecture hall, slammed that baby on the desk and skipped your way to freedom. As you walk home you notice how great the air smells, how bright the sun is and how beautiful your campus is. School is out and you are feelin’ groovy.

After regaling your roommates with tales from your 90-minute essay exam (“I totally rocked that shiz!”), you head to your room to start the end-of-the-year cleaning session, beer in hand. You grab a garbage bag, sit down at your desk and start sifting through the piles of papers, books and notebooks that litter your desk.

In the back of your mind, you know that some of those notebooks will come in handy for next year’s classes. In the front of your mind, though, you know you will never look at them ever again. So, in a celebratory fashion, you toss one binder after another into the Hefty.

“Bye bye, Econ! See ya never, Psych 240!” The feeling is euphoric. All those syllibi, gone. All those Power Point slides, gone. Those damn course packs, gone. All those near-empty highlighters, gone.

Before you know it, you are left with nothing but a stack of books.

You gather the books, throw them into your backpack and head to the bookstore to sell them back. On your way, you start planning what you will do with all that extra money. A keg for the big end-of-the-year bash? A new bag?  The possibilities are endless. Even though you know the bookstores totally screw you with the buy-back, you have, like, 12 books this time! Giant, expensive textbooks and lots of novels. You’re sure there is some serious cash flow coming your way.

The bag is heavy and by the time you make it to the bookstore you are sweating. Naturally, the line is super long and filled with other students hoping to make it rain. You stand there, cocked to the side from that overflowing bag of books, and watch student after student happily free themselves of the semester. Only the looks on their faces as they leave isn’t one of big money – it is anger.

When it is finally your turn, you unload your books onto the counter. The cashier scans them one at a time, forming two piles.

“We can’t use these,” he says, pointing to the larger stack. “They’re going with the new edition next year.” He offers to let you take them home (so nice of him), or he can donate them to whatever organization it is that wants your used copy of Tom Jones. You consider taking them – you aren’t going to give those away for free! – but then you realize that you’d have to carry those all back home, not to mention pack them up and move them.

“Ugh. Just keep them,” you say.

You don’t think things can get any worse and then he hands you your money. A whole $26. For 5 books. That wasn’t even a quarter of the cost of one! You rip that money out of his hands and storm out of the store.

——

Yeah, we’ve all been there. Maybe if you combine your money with all of your friends, you’d have enough for that keg.

Ah, summer. The temperatures rise, the air thickens, our tans darken (unless you work in an office like me), and we go back to the old friends from home that we haven’t spent much time with in the past year. But among the mass of people you used to see all the time in high school, there are six different types of people that you will never see over your long summer vacation at home.

The Facebooker (or The Texter): She writes on your wall. She texts you. Every. Week. “OMG, when am I seeing you??” “What are you doing tonight? Can we make plans?!” She’s always in contact with you, but when you actually want to make plans, she’s vague and flaky. There’s always a conflict in your schedules, and she can never hang out even though she’s all up on your Facebook, sending you notifications like there’s no tomorrow and keeping the red light on your BlackBerry constantly flashing. Get it together, girl — do you want to hang out with me or not?!

The In-Class Friend: You were great friends in AP English, and AP biology, and AP calculus. She was that one cool girl you found amongst the nerds in your classes, and she helped you get through every last one. You got along really well, and you genuinely liked each other. You’d share notes, study together, laugh at your teacher’s ridiculous outfits, and share hilarious weekend stories on Monday morning. But that’s it. Once that bell rang every day, you didn’t really talk much. You’d actually like to hang out with her and catch up, but you’re in completely different circles of friends, haven’t texted her since your group project senior year, and basically lost touch in college, so it just never happens. But you can’t help wondering what she’s up to…

The Girl Who’s Always Working: She’s a bit of an over-achiever. She’s got an internship in the city, two weekend jobs, and a babysitting job at night. This girl is literally NEVER available; she’s either working or too exhausted to hang out. She wants to hang out with you, but she barely has time to breathe, let alone text you. She’s concentrating on building her resume and fattening her wallet this summer instead of soaking up the rays by the pool. You don’t really like it, but you can’t help but respect her for being in an office at 10AM on a Monday instead of sleepily rolling out of bed to go downstairs to eat last night’s leftover sesame noodles for breakfast. Not that any of us do that. Ever.

The Hideaway: This girl is legit MIA. You see her once in awhile, and then she just completely disappears. She’s never on Facebook, doesn’t answer her phone, and never contacts you. You often wonder if she is still alive. You have no idea what she’s up to this summer, except for that she’s taken it upon herself to completely isolate herself from the world. And the worst part is, she’s actually a fun friend who would bring something to the group. But she doesn’t. Because she’s nowhere to be found.

The Girl Who Got a Boyfriend at College: This girl was THE BEST – until she got a boyfriend. She was  that one friend who was always up for a froyo date, a spin class, or a kegger. But now she’s with him – ALL the time. She’s always planning her next visit to see him or going to the zoo with him or going to the beach with him or going back to school with him or video chatting with him or posting pictures on Facebook of the two of them in sepia Apple Photo Booth pictures. She used to be awesome, but now she’s got her boy whipped and is psyched about it. She’s never around, and even when you do see her on an extremely rare occasion (a.k.a. when her boyfriend has a funeral or a doctor’s appointment), she’s preoccupied with texting him, or doesn’t shut up about how amazing he is and how much she misses him. She views your single life as a phase she’s totes over (“I’m just so not into the whole random hookup thing anymore”), and makes you feel bad for not feeling the same way.

The Annoying One You Choose Not to See: The day you graduated, you bade this girl fare-freakin’-well and never looked back. She followed you around in high school and was obsessed with you and everything about you, but you never felt the same way about her. You politely invited her to things in high school because you felt bad, but as soon as you went to college, you knew you never would have to hang out with her again. She’s essentially “the friend nobody likes.” Now she won’t leave you alone, and you can’t stand it. You hate being a jerk, but you constantly have to blow her off by passing yourself as any of the girls above.

Summer is in full swing and while we’re all busy toiling away at our internships and jobs, it’s hard not to dream about those relaxing and fun summers of our past. Not only did we have zero responsibility back then, but we had all of our friends to chase through sprinklers and get Dairy Queen with. Not anymore. With all of our college friends spread across the country and the dreaded 9-5 gig, summers just aren’t the same anymore.

But they don’t have to be a total bust. It is summer, after all.

When it comes to summer break, there are only 5 friends you need for optimal summertime fun. You keep these peeps around and you’re golden through Labor Day.

The Friend With The Pool.
Do you feel that? Yeah, that’s the sweat pooling in the small of your back and soaking into your now-stinky cami. It’s hot as balls out there and as much as lying nearly naked on your parents’ leather couch cools you down momentarily, it’s not even close to satisfying. What you need is a friend with a giant, refreshing body of water in his or her backyard. With a BFF like this there’s no battling small children with floaties at the neighborhood pool or all that sand that gets….up there…at the beach. It’s just pure bliss in raft and margarita form.

The Friend with an ID
If you’re an underager like me, this guy or girl is more popular than LeBron James. Find one now and hold on tight until the end of August. And if this person’s parents have a summer home out of town and leave him or her alone for days at a time, start a relationship. Yes, even if it’s a girl. Whatever it takes, right?

The Friend Who Is Still On Campus Nearby
Summer is fun and relaxing but, let’s be honest, living at home with the parental units can be extremely boring. There’s only so much you can do in your hometown before you start having cabin/”I can’t believe I have a curfew” fever. Enter: the friend who stayed on campus this summer. Just hop in the car and escape to freedom after work on Friday, get your party on, eat your 4am pizza and get back just in time for Sunday dinner courtesy of mom and pops.

The Friend With A Boring Job
Who else will keep you entertained with funny links, TFLN texts and major whining sessions when you’re at your boring job all day?

The Friend With The Awesome Job
Friend with awesome job = friend with awesome hook ups. Whether they’re mixing up ice cream at Cold Stone, hawking hipster-wear at Urban Outfitters, serving burgers at Red Robin (yummmmm), or assisting on big, celebrity events at a magazine, their paycheck means sweet discounts and freebies for you. That you can take advantage of. All. Summer. Long.

Are there any more friends you think every girl should have in the summer? Share them below!

Now, things couldn’t be more different.

College has opened me up to a whole new world that allows you to be basically as lazy, drunk, and independent as you please, whenever you please. I know not everyone will agree with me about all this, but real life back at home with real responsibilities just seems so much more dull than simply having to cram for an exam every once in a while. But that’s not all. I’m yearning to be back on campus because, well:

1. You don’t have to drive anywhere.
What’s a bigger buzz kill than fighting with your friends over who’s going to be DD for the night? Life is way more fun when everyone gets to enjoy some cocktails and your biggest issue is whether or not it’s safe to take off your pumps and walk home barefoot.

2. Your friends are willing to go out roughly Monday through Saturday.
Although everyone has the friend who could care less about showing up hungover to their summer internship, wasn’t it just so much more fun when no one cared about showing up hungover to their classes?

3. You don’t have to face the possibility of running into your ex-boyfriend or ex-friend from high school.
Lovers and foes come and go in college (usually early in the mornings…) but in high school, the drama and grudges sometimes seem inescapable. And for some reason, they’re always way. more. awkward.

4. There are no parents.
Although mine truly are great, it’s nice not to have to report back to mom and dad about what you’re doing all the time… or try to explain why your pillow smells of beer or how “you can sleep the day away when it’s so beautiful outside.”

5. You don’t have to wake up before 10 a.m.
Well, this is only true if you’re not pre-med and were lucky enough to have as amazing of a schedule as I did last semester. But, boy let me tell you… what a life!

6. There are more better excuses to get drunk.
Football games, snow days, midterms are over, your friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s birthday, you failed your first test, $2 pitcher night, you’re not pregnant, it’s Thursday….

With all this, college just seems to add up to nothing less than every 18 to 20-something-year-old’s utopia. I’ll take recovering from a hangover every other day and frequent all nighters in the library over filling out Excel spreadsheet after Excel spreadsheet at my summer internship any day.

School, I want you back!

Just another day in the country...

The summer before my freshman year of college, I packed my bags into the back of my car and drove to the big city. Cue the music, feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you… My blonde hair was whipping in the wind, my shades on. I was starting a whole new life, and although Raleigh, NC is nothing like LA and my life is far from an episode of The Hills, it was really exciting. I’m from a town where if you want to go to a mall, you have to drive forty-five minutes. A town where you can’t talk about someone, because chances are, it’s your friend’s second cousin.

So I did what any big-city-living-in-the-country girl would do; I said eff that and moved to the state’s capitol.

Oh the city; when your skyline came into my view I screamed and threw my arms into the air, excited to reside within your warm arms. For an entire school year, I danced on your bars, shopped in your stores, and fell in love with your boys. But when the summer came, I pulled a Scarlett O’Hara (“Home. I’ll go home…”). I figured the country would give me time to relax, to detox, and, frankly, it was closer to the beach. Things would be serene, and all that.

Yeah, until I smelled my town before I even entered it. Serenity (and the sound of tractors) is only interesting for about a day. I miss the city! I miss the constant buzz, the bars, and the stores! You would think I learned my lesson the first time, yet here I am, my sophomore summer, sitting in a town with a Food Lion and that’s it.

What the hell was I thinking?!

Shopping
I have a shopping addiction. My family cringes when I walk through the door because, chances are, I will have at least one shopping bag in tow. Now I get excited when I go shopping in Food Lion, a grocery store, a mere 2 minutes away from our house.

Night life
I ask you this: why do people around here find hanging out in parking lots “fun”? Am I the only one who is confused by this?! Where I once got numbers, I now get mosquito bites.

Boys
Okay, so I have a boyfriend now, but when I was single living in the city was like living in a candy store. There were so many sweet things to choose from, it was hard to pick just one. Not only do cities promise more boys in one place, they’re way bigger so you’re less likely to be dating your best friend’s third cousin on their mom’s side who used to have braces and wet the bed. Okay, I just don’t need to know about all that. Not to mention how awkward it is when your friend finds out! Oh, the days when people laughed and pulled out old pictures. Let’s not even get started on how you are dating someone that another girl dated in the fourth grade, and she has yet to move on.

Okay, so it’s actually kinda nice to fall asleep to the sounds of crickets chirping instead of girls stumbling and laughing in the dorm hallway. It’s not half bad that I no longer have to hide my accent for fear of being called “big country”. But I’m still counting down the days until I see that skyline once more in August.

How about you guys? Are some of you not so happy to be home?

As you bid adieu to roommates, campus bartenders, and that guy you may or may not have hooked up with last weekend (still waiting for photo evidence), I said goodbye to my favorite Upper East Siders on Gossip Girl (am I saying goodbye to Chuck forever!?) and bawled my eyes out watched in horror as MTV is wrapping up putting The Hills out of it’s misery, one week at a time.

And I know I’m going to be extra cranky as I face three months without Serena’s gravity defying boobs and Miss Blair’s scheming ways.  I feel so abandoned.  What’s that you say?  Retail therapy?  Good thing Victoria’s Secret has a sale!  Also:

-To make room for your new cute things, I suggest you clean out your old tees by making them into stylish and fun bracelets.  You might as well jump-start your reputation as a poolside trendsetter.

-Thinking of transferring schools over the summer?  Have Harvard dreams?  This is how one guy faked his way in.

-If you’re sick of men altogether or thinking of going it alone this season, keep updated on Man Free May.  Think of it as a What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting [Any Action] guide.

-We weigh the pros (there are so many) and the cons of the often complicated relationship we all have with alcohol.

-Turns out being a wino is good for your health!  I propose a toast…

-Start demanding more from your man.  Have something to add to the list?  Leave us a comment!

-For all our graduates: Congratulations!  If you’re feeling a little down about leaving that 10×12 room you’ve called home, we’ve got you covered.  No need to sing the graduation blues alone.

Well that just sucks.

[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 Facebook! ) 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!]

Summer, my favorite time of year. Not because of the weather (yay, swimming!) or the fashion (yay, things that aren’t sweaters!) though those things are great – I love summer for the same reason that pretty much every other kid who went to school in America does; no class! But, even though the sixth grader inside my head chafes at the idea, summer classes are becoming more and more common, so the question is, are they worth it?

Alright, the pros of summer classes (words I never thought I would write). One perk of taking summer classes is that you’re getting your credits but you can mix up the usual class experience – you can take classes at an affiliated college or do a program in another city or country (hot foreign boys). Plus you don’t have all of the distractions that come with the rest of the school year (football games, school newspaper, frat row parties…). Getting some classes done over the summer also means more credits you don’t have to take later, so maybe cutting down your college career (and the amount of time you’re footing those tuition bills). Summer classes also usually take about half the time that classes do during the school year (how does that work??) and a lot of the time you can catch a break on the price with special summer scholarships and financial aid.

So yeah, maybe taking summer classes isn’t such a bad idea… or is it?

Taking summer classes isn’t all bright and sunny (like the weather you’ll be missing indoors); there are cons too. Aside from the whole “you have the next 40 years of your life to work so why not enjoy a little freedom while you have it” argument *cough cough* there are also some practical considerations. For one thing, if you live in campus housing or go take classes somewhere out of town, you have nowhere to live. Most of the time you can find a limited-time rental to stay in, but it means forking over extra cash. Also, while you won’t be distracted by all of the cool stuff going on during the school year, do you really think you’re going to be less distracted by missing out on the awesome BFFs roadtrip or those vacation pictures that just haunt your Facebook feed?

Not to mention that social interaction is supposed to be part of the college experience, instead you’ll be there with a bunch of people like you who are just holding thier breath until class is over and they can escape – forget bonding! On the purely academic front, the shorter number of class days means longer classes most of the time and may also make it harder for you to absorb the subject and get all of the homework done. To save money, most schools also cut down on the hours things like libraries and camputer labs are open which could make life hard if you’re working on, say, a research heavy class (or have three homework-less roommates).

So what do you think? Are you signing up for the summer credits? Or will you be kicking back this year and soaking up your free summers while you have them? Duke it out!

Chances are you’ll be spending many days at the beach this summer. And chances are good that a day of sun time can often be topped off by a night of fun time out at the bars.  Heading out for some drinkies with the girls doesn’t mean you have to rush home to get ready; you can rock out the same outfit all day with a few quick fixes (and hey, tousled beach hair is damn sexy).

Bring along your trusty beach tote so you can carry all the beach essentials (towel, sunscreen, gossip mags & snackies) plus a couple quick add-ons (deodorant!) to make sure you look as hot as your skin feels.

Neon is a super popular trend this season and you can find adorable bikinis and tankinis (if your abs aren’t quite as hard as you’d like) that incorporate this trend for $24 at Wal-mart. Yes, Wal-mart! Yes, $24!

This cover-up from Target is the perfect solution for a summer day-to-night experience. It works four ways so you can wear it as a skirt over that bikini during the day, then pull it up for a cute strapless dress for night.  Could there be anything easier? I think not.

Flip flops are a beach necessity, and it’s hard to find many that are more comfy than Havaianas, not to mention they come in tons of fun colors, designs and styles. I’m loving the purple, mostly because I know my friends don’t have this color yet, so our flippies won’t get confused at the beach.

When it comes time to leave the sand and sun and head to the land o’ alcohol, switch the cover-up to dress mode, put on a pair of sassy wedge sandals, dangly earrings and a bracelet, and you’re set for some fun of the nighttime variety.

Run your fingers through your hair, spray on a little perfume and hit the bars to round out a perfect summer day.