What could I possibly tell you about college that could be so important? I really don’t know either, but I'm just going to say everything that's been on my mind since graduation. In college, you have to work hard, annoying click groups, massive hangovers, and endure painfully enthusiastic college professors that are passionate about the Ottoman Empire or cold fusion. Most professors teach their intro classes too easy or so hard that you would think you’re majoring in the subject by the time you finish. All in al, when you come out you may not be immediately financially rich, but you'll be rich in experience.

The other day I was on facebook, and you know how addictive it can be when its 3 in the morning, you’re totally wasted, and your sending messages to friends (and possibly a few enemies). Anywho, I was reminiscing on how much my college years sucked and could have been better as I browsed through the profiles of my college friends. Suddenly I see one of those “personality quizzes” that asks for which video game character you would be, what Disney princess you look the most like, or what time of the day your more likely to fart (they got a million of them). Just for laughs, I took a quiz on which college I should have gone to either a large party school or a conservative private university. When I completed the test I found that I should have gone to a small liberal arts university… which is exactly where I ended up getting my undergrad degree. Damn, I thought. Regardless of whether this quiz is accurate or not, I hit the nail on the head with my chose. As much as I disliked aspects of my college experience, I really did appreciate what my university stood for. Personality is relatively enduring so the way I felt about academics as a high schooler is apparently the same way I feel about it now.

What’s the moral of this story? When choosing a university to attend or transfer to, you should consider your personality and what works the best for you. If you have a quiet persona and a calm disposition always with your nose in a book, the best place for you is a good school that cares about academics. This can be a liberal arts university like mine, small private or public colleges. Now if you’re incredibly smart or just really ambitious you should try for the best school you can get into like one of the top Ivy League schools. Shoot for the stars, you only live once. If you’re a slob then go to a party school, but just don’t let too many of those pictures escape on your My Space page or you’ll never get a job. Trust me, there was a boy at my school who partied too hard and had all these pictures online. Although an acceptable level of alcohol for a frat party, the people at the law school thought he was an alcoholic and made him go in for treatment before he attended their university. He tried to tell them that he wasn’t an alcoholic but they said “The first step is admitting you have a problem.” It’s a sad story, but it makes for great pedagogical purpose. Sucks for that kid, so just don’t let it happen to you.

Even though I didn’t like the setting of my university, the small class size and liberal arts education really was what I was looking for from the start. It was just the location that bothered me. Coming out of college I was wondering if I had really chosen the right university. I attended a private school in the middle of Winston-Salem. Never heard of the city? I’m not surprised. Picking your university is just as important as picking the city you’ll be living in for four years, and believe me living in Winston was no picnic sometimes. Sure the campus was beautiful, but the city was dead. In fact, on the clubs close to the university was burnt down and another was altered into a storage place for my university’s library. Good Ole Winston-Salem and its family values. If you’re ever there you could go to the strip clubs with all the mini-vans and “good ole” dads inside. You want to make sure you move to a city that you can enjoy the city as well. If you like to watch paint dry then you’d like a city in the middle of a corn patch. If you want a big city then move to a big city. If you hate city life, move to the country or suburbs. If you don’t want to go too far from home find a college within an hour away. One suggestion is that you want to network like crazy with alumni and potential companies you can work with. Moving to a big city has its advantages because you can gain huge networks while still in school. There’s something out there to match your personality, but its going to take a little research to find it.

I know it’s hard sometimes, but you have to plan for the future, but not so much that you’re not focusing on the present. The long-term future is your career, graduate or professional school, so don’t forget the reasons why you attended college. Your immediate future is your next exam or term paper. Your present is studying, and never take for granted the need to study and importance of reading. You might not be able to get through the whole book, but they made sparknotes and cliffnotes for a reason. Just don’t rely too heavily on them if you want to make an A or better. Now studying can be tricky. Is there a good time during the day to study? I would say it depends, but I prefer to study at night and here’s why. Your brain shuts down at night in the same state that you wake up in the next morning. Also, you’re not processing any new information to intercept the information you just freshly studied. One final point for studying at night is that dreaming is thought to be memory consolidation so things get pulled from memory into your dream and it just a good thing. So I was going somewhere what that last point, but I think you get what I’m trying to say. Moreover, there are other ways to help your memory with these special techniques called mnemonics (if I forget to put a link to what those are please remind me). One final point about studying is that you must have sleep before an exam, your brain depends on it. If you have to pull an all nighter, then stay up two nights before the exam and get a full night right before the test the next day. Trust me it works a lot better.

If you must drink then get it out of your system (literally) your first year in college. After that you can still have fun, but you have to be more responsible. Remember the hapless law student the next you plan to shoot that rum after you’ve already had two 40s. By the time you get to your senior year you don’t have to have everything all figured out, but you need to have enough brain cells left to make good decisions. One good decision is taking on a double major or a minor (or two). You want to be as competitive as possible these days and being savvy in two subjects certainly won’t hurt anything. Take that fifth year in college too. The real world is nothing like college where you can get the notes from a friend. You don’t have to enter into it until you are absolutely ready.

Speaking of majors, how did you pick one? Have you seen some of these school’s lists of majors? Everything from Food science to Restaurant Hospitality. Assess your parents and what they’re jobs are. Look at your room and pick out the things you love the most about yourself. Ask your friends what they could envision you as. Pick something within interest that is also practical. Or combine something practical with something you really love. The more passionate you are about a subject the better you’ll do in it. If you want to be an Art major, good, then combine it with a computer science or business degree. Also, if you want more money you’re going to have to work a little harder. The market is always in need for people who understand the sciences. If you did well in high school science and math classes, keep going and don’t give up. Yes, unless you are a genius, it does get harder as you go along, but only to a reasonable level. Engineers and medical doctors are always sought after. Just remember that information builds on itself, so you should keep up your studies from your previous class in your head. So become a tutor for the class you just finished. You may be wondering, what? Me tutor? You can do it, and you can tutor levels higher than just elementary age kids. Remember that hard economics or physics class you had last semester? Well, if you want to pursue that as a major, you can tutor others struggling in the class so you can hold on to that stuff you learned. I know usually we all can’t wait for winter break and summer break and to forget everything we’ve learned, but it will make your major a lot easier. It’s the smartest thing you can do.

On that note, it might not be a bad idea for you to get a tutor. Getting a tutor doesn’t mean you’re dumb, it just means you are really motivated to do well. You can’t predict your grade in the class or that you’ll even struggle with it, but with the help of a tutor you can take your first steps towards doing well in the class. The year I had a tutor I got my lowest GPA of any semester, but it isn’t because of my tutors it’s because I relied too heavily on them to just make my grade better. Tutors are a good idea, but only if you’re really motivated. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid if you seek a tutor on a harder topic. Also note that there are websites (legitimate ones) that offer help for writing research papers. You can check with your English department because they may have a writing center. They can’t help with the content of your paper, but they can help improve grammar and style. Or if you are an English major you can join or establish a writer’s help center at your university.

There’s a million things that can go wrong in college, but there are a billion more than can bring you happiness. The keys to college are pretty simple: go to class, study like you mean it, never give up; join a frat or sorority, if you want; keep up your sports interest even if you have to join an intramural sports club; find an uber awesome roommate; study abroad, it will change your perspective about the world; find out if you can audit electives, it might help your GPA; keep that GPA at either the 2.5, 3.0 or 3.5 mark depending on what you want to do after you graduate; but most importantly enjoy the time you have with your friends and keep in touch after you all graduate. I can attest that college is a fun time and some of the best years of your life – cherish it.