88 Surefire Tips for Succeeding in College

I do believe that these are excellent.  Though I may not agree with all of them word for word…..it is by far the best list I have seen in my mere 28 years on this planet.  Be sure to check it out.

 88 Surefire Tips for Succeeding in College

Quit Counter (smoking)

If you actually read my various posts you know there is a whole lot of sarcastic commentary on college life and everything which it entails. I also attempt to provide some insight for those who my be preparing to enter the realm of “higher learning.” That being said, one thing that I take issue with regardless of my comments on drinking, drugs, and sex; is smoking.

I smoked through the majority of my collegiate life. I began my freshman year, and it was an on and off relationship throughout my final year of grad school. I didn’t manage to quit for good until I had been out of school for over a year.

I always knew it was bad for me, as we all do these days. But it was an addiction. It was also a crutch. Something goes bad…light up a cigarette and feel the nicotine coursing through your veins. Feel the release and the relaxation it nearly instantly provides. It is tough to quit. I found it harder than giving up a recreational drug habit, harder than not drinking on a weekend.

That is why I perodically post information on the costs of smoking and quitting. I will not condemn anyone for their habits, or should I say their addictions. I have had enough of them in my lifetime. I just wish to share information I come across, if nothing else than to give some persepctive for when you are ready to quit. Because there is one thing I have learned; you can’t make someone quit who isn’t ready….

Now that my public service announcement is out of the way, here is a link for Quit Counter. Lifehacker posted about it a couple of weeks ago:

Windows only: Freeware program Quit Counter helps motivate you to quit smoking by tracking your progress and milestones.

The milestones, which track statistics like cigarettes not smoked and money saved (based on information you enter into the program), look like the best part of this utility. Quit Counter is the first freeware app I’ve run into designed to help you quit smoking, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there were more out there, so if you know of a similar tool, let’s hear about it in the comments. Check out our smoking tag for more on kicking your smokes to the curb.

 

You can go to the Quit Counter site here

How many calories are in that beer young man (along with percent alcohol and carbs)?

For those of you all concerned about the calories, carbs, and percent alcohol in your brewski’s the University of Rochester has compiled a substantial list with the aforementioned information.

Personally it was always my opinion that if I was going to be drinking, I’d drink what I liked, not whatever was “healthiest.”  I mean, come on….is beer healthy for you to be drinking in the first place, at least to the degree that college students do???

The U of R also has a number of other links to information about other drugs, which actually isn’t too too bland. Learn some info you had previously not known about Cocaine, Heroin, and Methamphetamine.  For instance, curse the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914, not current politicians…..

Click here for the list mentioned above 

Top 10 signs you are a cokehead

For those of you who may have been wondering where the fine line between recreational rail-buster and full-out cokehead exists…though I must say, if you have to ask such a question I know where you fall….

1. Women are no longer the only ones going to the bathroom in groups.
2. Keys don’t only open doors.
3. You know people only by their nicknames (Billy bumps, Vinny quick-fix, Nicky nostrils, Matty mirrors).
4. You have seen Scarface at least 4 times in the past week.
5. You look forward to a runny nose.
6. Dedicated Dollars.
7. Calculating the cost of a 3000 mile line, NY to the Bahamas including all possible expenditures ($2.35 billion).
8. “Loaded like a freight train, flying like an airplane, feeling like a space brain, one more time tonight.”
9. What does “gummy” mean to you?
10. Sitting around with the guys, making a list about what it means to be a cokehead

Keep your nose clean

Unless you hole yourself up in your room 22 hours a day playing Everquest when not at class, this rule is imperative in two ways:

1. The most general sense of staying out of trouble. There is no question that the college years are times to have fun and be foolish. However, it is also imperative to realize that your decisions follow your for your entire life. Hosting a party that gets busted can lead to numerous tickets, some of which may follow your on your record. No one wants one party-filled night at college to determine whether you or some other chump gets that job at Goldman Sachs. I also recently saw a segment on the national nightly news where some employers are checking up on their perspective employees on MySpace, Facebook, Flikr, etc. Be aware….all of those crazy drunken pictures probably don’t show the “real you,” it would suck to miss out because of that.
2. Your actual nose. Whether your a a library-stuyin’ Adderall junkie, or a rail bashing coked out party animal, make sure your nose is clean. Nothing is more embarrassing than walking out of the secluded room after taking care of business to have some buddy say, “Dude, check your nose.” Check yourself in a mirror or your reflection on a pane of glass; Lick the tip of your finger, and clean the outer nostril…just do something! Just ask Kate Moss….

So the lesson here my friends, just as the title of the post says: keep your nose clean, in whatever way it applies to you. You don’t want to miss out on that job because of one night of foolishness that led to an arrest. And you certainly don’t want to miss out on that girl/guy because you walk out of the bathroom (of the party or library) with your nose looking like the rim of a margarita glass, letting everyone know what you were just doing.

Keep that nose clean!

Learn your limits

We all have limits as to how far we can push our bodies and minds and still be successful. For each person these limits are different. These limits also come in different varieties depending on what kind of person you are….

• how much sleep you need to function
• how much you can drink without a hangover
• how much you can drink and not get sick
• how much you can drink and….pretty much anything
• how much you can study and still get an A
• how much you can study and still pass
• how much you can study and not get kicked out of school

The list may go on and on, as I am sure you can identify an endless number of additional "limits"….drugs, sex, extra-curricular activities, family, friends, money…they all come into play. Now for the lesson….

KNOW YOUR LIMITS. In my opinion this is the single most important factor to being successful in college. Some people know their limits from day one, do not cross them, and will cruise through and be done in 4 years. Others either seem unable to recognize that there are/should be limits and are continuously pushing the envelope in every way. These are people who end up dropping out, reapplying, and getting put on probation numerous times before just squeaking through school 6 years later, if at all.

Now don't get me wrong, you need to push your limits in order to actually know what they are. That is true. But you simply cannot continuously do so. This will lead to problems.

Two examples of different limits….

1. My father always told me about a friend of his when he was in college who nearly had a photographic memory. He would take his chemistry book and take it to the bar and sit down with it. Beer in one hand, book in the other. And he would read, and probably get drunk as well. His limits were obviously well beyond most of ours.
2. A friend of mine, Jimmy, loved to drink. It was a 7 day a week occurrence. Always inviting people over to have a couple beers and listen to 80's music. Jimmy was a crazy drunk. He got these eyes…and crazy hands….and aggressive. Not to mention when the next day came he would not remember a thing. We all know people like this. The problem is that all this drinking kept Jimmy from doing any sort of school work or going to classes. Within a semester Jimmy was out of school and just living the life in a college town until all of his summer money was gone. Thankfully, from what I have heard from him, Jimmy has finally discovered his "limits" as well and is back at school after a couple of years trying to finish up at last….

Learn your limits. Embrace them, and then go out and have a great time….it will pay off in the end!

I won’t say “don’t do drugs”

Yes, you read it correctly, I will not say "don't do drugs".  There are many reasons for this.  First of all, you are your own person and who am I to tell you what to do?  As often quoted, "am I my brother's keeper?"

 Besides that, there are things to be learned from experimentation with various substances.  Just ask Sigmund Freud.  He thought he had found a miracle drug with the use of cocaine in psychoanalysis.  Now he may not have been totally on target, but cocaine does have its uses, actually still being used as a numbing agent in some eye surgeries.

 In any case, drugs have their place.  I yet do not believe that they belong as an integral place of society, but they do have a place in our lives.  Many of us currently take medications much stronger than the "illegal" substances which are part of the college experience, with more significant side effects.

The key is to know your limits, and to know yourself….more to come.  I assure you. 

Drugs are everywhere

Don't be fooled, drugs are everywhere. Whether you consider them to be prescription pills, smoke-ables, inject-ables, edibles, or imbibe-ables, they are everywhere. Legal or illegal, they are everywhere.

You just need to know how/where to look for them. On a campus where it is illegal to smoke, walk into the surrounding woods and you will find cigarette buts. If you want illegal drugs go to a small house party and look for small groups of people hanging out by themselves. Observe how they act. Once you know what to look for, you will find….they are everywhere.

At my religious college the two keepers on the soccer team spent the week before nationals flushing their system of cannabis because they feared the possibility of drug testing. At my state school you could get anything at any hour. At my elite university you just needed to know what closed doors to look behind.

If you don't want to see them, and don't want anything to do with them, I have some very simple advice: don't ask. I went through 4 years of college not asking, and therefore not seeing anything. Don't get me wrong, two of those years were spent in a fraternity where drugs were largely a way of life. They were just not a part of mine.

It is a decision that is up to you to make. No one can do it for you. More to come at a later time…

Collegiate Ubiquity’s

Know what the words mean??? A reflection upon collegiate experiences and everything that comes with them. Having attended three very different institutions of higher learning over a period of six years, I have learned many things. The goal of this blog is to share such learning experiences and observations with you, in order to help you understand your upcoming collegiate experience better, or possibly reflect upon your experiences in the past.