Strategies To Use College For Success In Your Life Course

BY ANTON LUCANUS

College is an adventure. It is also a series of complex events that forces one to grow up, and grow up fast. So how does one get through those four years and come out the other side ready for the hard and fast world of adult life? Here are three recommendations for brand new college students on how to live responsibly in the world of university.

1. Pick Your Friends/Roommates Wisely

This has to be the hardest thing about college life, but it’s possible. Often times people come away from college with friends for life, or even a life partner. You want to be on the lookout for both – because you never know what’s around the bend. At the same time, you want to manage expectations. Everyone in college is insecure and struggling with a sense of self. Look for those people who will admit this and are open and vulnerable enough to share in your own insecurities and find out who you really are.

Translating these friendships into sane living situations can be even more difficult. Securing safe and steady accommodations during your college life can be one of the hardest aspects of these four years. As the age-old adage says: A good roommate is hard to find. When you’re on the hunt for a living situation, ask yourself and the people you are interviewing to live with a few questions, such as: Who is responsible for cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms? Do you have affordable renters insurance? You have to go with the grown-up questions as well as the friendly ones. At the end of the day, if these people end up friends for life, they will have answers to these questions and be totally comfortable with you asking them.

2. Get Outside Your Comfort Zone

At first it can be a security blanket to stay with and who you know–new students often try to find a niche in the social strata of college life, and stay in it. But at the end of these four years you’re going to have only one person you can rely on.  And that is yourself. Don’t get too caught up in on-campus drama. Find a way to make friends, and have a life off-campus, whether that be through a living situation, or making time for healthy off-campus activities. These are the years to experiment, to go against the grain of what you normally think, feel and do, and try new things. At the same time you want to stay within healthy bounds. Experiment, but experiment with wisdom and caution. Try a new sport. Learn a new language. Join a new group. Find a new hobby. You are a student not just in the classroom, but in the world as well. If you’re smart, you will graduate knowing this and therefore have a foundation that you can build an amazing life on: namely, that you are forever a student, and forever open to new opportunities, ideas and ways of thinking. And you’re comfortable knowing that.

3. Budgeting

Budgeting for college has become nonexistent. Students are expected to go into massive debt to cover the cost of tuition, books and accommodation. This assumption is fundamentally unhealthy – and untrue. With a little time, reigning in of expectations, and smart decisionmaking you can come out of college with minimal-to-no debt. So why don’t people actually do it? Because it’s hard. And it takes time.

Although ritzy schools look great on a résumé, they hold an inordinate amount of weight in your bank account. Think ahead: Do you want to be graduating with the debt the size of a mortgage? Start with community college and get a part or full-time job as you become more comfortable with your course load. If you continue to live at home, those two years for an associate’s degree can easily pass with no accumulation of debt. Those final two years can also pass debt-free as long as you continue work-study and use a few budget hacks to stay in control of what you spend. These can include: Using public transportation, living with roommates, etc.

What’s another major hack for saving throughout college?

Not falling for the “I have to have a brand new textbook” lie that professors and publishers tell students.

Textbooks alone can cost upwards of thousands of dollars. But this is no longer a day in age where paper is the only medium available to college consumers. Don’t be afraid to go off script with your textbook-buying. Even if the syllabus does ask for a specific edition, feel free to check in with one of your classmates in the class, or go into the library where a copy is usually available. The truth is there are few major difference between these editions. They are mostly billed as new versions to reap more profit for the publisher and author. And feel free to go digital: Often there are online versions of textbooks available for half the price.

Byline – Anton Lucanus is the Director of Neliti. During his college years, he maintained a perfect GPA, was published in a top cancer journal, and received many of his country’s most prestigious undergraduate scholarships. Anton writes for The College Puzzle as a means to guide current students to achieve personal and educational fulfilment during college life. You can contact Anton via email at antonlucanus@gmail.com

5 Essential Skills That Complement Academic Study

BY MIKKI MILLS

Your resume might need to have some job-specific skills so that you can qualify for an interview. However, this may vary across industries depending on the target role or sector. It may include some prior experience or relevant industry qualification. Nonetheless, there are so many other skills that today’s graduates need to thrive in the ever-competitive labor market. Over time, it has become crucial to stay current with globalization, digital transformation, and trends in the modern workplaces. Learning in-demand skills such as engaging clients on social media and coding can make a huge difference. In fact, some of these skills can open up a gap in your other sets of expertise and enable a candidate to stand out from a crowd of applicants competing for the same job. Here are five essential skills that every college student should focus on to cut through the competitive labor market.

Creativity and Motivation

Companies need to be disruptive and creative to keep pace with technological trends, business needs, and economic changes. Otherwise, it might be a nightmare to reap the benefits of machine learning technology and survive the ongoing industrial revolution. One of the strengths of a college graduate should be the capacity to think critically, adapt to changes, and flexibility. A graduate should be able to suggest new ways of beating the competition, improving efficiency, and increasing brand visibility to remain an invaluable asset to a business.

Coding Skills

Web development vs software development skills brings all employers to the yard. In fact, coding skills rule nearly all business processes. As such, it’s crucial to learn CSS and HTML to stand out from the crowd. The value that coding brings to college students can’t be overlooked.

Soft Skills

Over time, soft skills such as work ethic and self-motivation have become increasingly in-demand. As the world moves toward a less stuffy and more social working environment, skills such as positivity and teamwork will make a huge difference. These are some of the qualities that employers will be looking in their potential candidates in the future. Soft skills are no longer just for communication-based jobs. Even people applying for technical roles will require in-demand soft skills at some point. More and more employees will work remotely as new technologies such as flexibility and mobility invade the workplace. In fact, traditional workplaces might soon become obsolete. As such, remote workers will need skills such as self-motivation to collaborate with others and manage their schedule.

Social Media Skills

The social media revolution has transformed nearly all business processes ranging from customer service to recruitment. As such, employers want to hire people who can use social media to build brand image, market products, and services, and engage potential customers. College students should leverage various online platforms such as website and social media to amplify their voice. Moreover, marketing professionals can use social media analytics to understand client base and evaluate performance. As such, the ability to use various social media features is a must-have tool in today’s data-driven age. Whether you are an engineering or marketing student, your social media skills will suggest to potential employers that you are a strategic and pragmatic thinker. In fact, marketing students can use Facebook or Twitter to derive actionable insights and turn that data into useful strategies.

Communication Skills

Fluency in several languages can be a game changer in today’s increasingly globalized world. Students who combine their understanding of different cultural contexts with their international experience will go a long way. Multilingualism will grow in importance over time. College students also needs to know how to carry on a conversation and learn to listen attentively and maintain eye contact. While the prevalence of social networking platforms has enabled students to connect seamlessly, they have lessened their ability to communicate via phone or face-to-face. Communication skills will be not only essential in school but also for future endeavors.

Mikkie is a freelance writer from Chicago. She has a passion for advanced learning, reading, and health and fitness. She is also a mother of two who loves sharing her ideas on education, learning, health, fitness and yoga. When she’s not writing, she’s chasing the little ones around or can be found at the local climbing gym or doing yoga.

Get Smarter: 8 Simple Hacks To Enhance Your Mental Effectiveness

BY EMMA BONNEY

Being smarter is everyone’s dream! But what if you got to know that it is absolutely in your hands if you want to improve your brain power? Yes, with the help of these easy hacks you can actually improve make yourself smarter.

Solve puzzles

Just like exercise makes our body stronger, our brain needs some exercise too, in order to develop its strength and power. There are a number of puzzles and games that will challenge your brain and sharpen its power by acting as exercises for the brain. Make it a habit of spending time on these brain exercises which help you enhance your brain power.

Get rid of distractions

While most of us love to claim that we are excellent at multitasking, the reality is often not so. What we end up doing in the name of multitasking is basically getting distracted by a number of things, thereby ending up remembering nothing substantial. Concentrate on what is important and discard the unnecessary information if you want to retain better.

Improve your lifestyle

An unhealthy diet and lifestyle can effectively reduce your brain’s power immensely. Therefore, it is a good idea to start working on improving your lifestyle. For starters, include healthy and brain boosting food in your diet. Also start yourself on a regime of exercise and meditation to improve your brain health and power immensely.

Sleep well

A good night’s sleep is essential for the brain cells to rest and regenerate. The lack of proper undisturbed sleep can cause the brain to be fatigued and exhausted, thereby reducing its strength. A healthy human being needs about 6 to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep on a regular basis. Therefore, for a stronger brain, it is important to ensure a regular sleep schedule.

Organise

Not only is having an organised life therapeutic and good for mental health, it is also excellent for a strong brain power and memory. Psychology says that once you get hold of the reigns of your life and organise it effectively, it is bound to improve your retention and brain power. Keep your day to day life organised. If necessary make charts and schedules to keep your life and mind clutter free, thereby improving your brain’s capabilities.

Be open to learning

Just because you are not a student doesn’t mean you have to stop studying. Make it a habit to explore new things every day, be it reading up a new book or watching an informative documentary. Taking up new information or experiencing new things on a regular basis boosts your brain’s ability to grasp new information, process and retain it better.

Learn to keep calm

Emotions such as stress, grief, panic etc. reduce your brain’s ability to function to its best potential, thereby hampering your brainpower. In order to prevent this, it is important to learn how to keep yourself calm.

Introduce caffeine in your life

Caffeine is an excellent brain booster. It enhances alertness and improves the brain’s ability to process information better. Introduction of a cup of coffee or supplements such as Nespresso compatible capsules will go a long way in improving your brain’s power.

Make these changes to your life and become smarter as well as healthier.

A bit about myself:

Emma Bonney is a successful blogger whose articles aim to help readers with self-development, Women’s Empowerment, Education, entrepreneurship and content management.

USA Needs More High School/ College Dual Enrollment

What you can do this summer to improve your chances of a job upon graduation

BY MELISSA BURNS

Times, when any college graduate was sure to get a job, are long past; with the job market today being what it is, the earlier you start thinking and, better yet, doing something about your future employment, the higher your chances of getting a position you like. Whether you are a freshman or a final year student, summer is the perfect time to do something extra to ensure your future employment, as there is more free time and you generally have a less constrained schedule. So what can you do this summer?

1.    Get an Internship

Students are often unwilling to take internships because they are afraid they will be stuck performing menial (and often unpaid) tasks, treated condescendingly and in general not receive their due. However, internships don’t necessarily have to pay in cash or even credits. They provide enough benefits of their own: they teach you time management skills, you get real work experience, build up your professional network, add to your resume, and it all serves as building blocks for your future career. Even if you aren’t paid a dime for your work, you significantly increase the chances of getting employment in future. If you demonstrate decent skills, you may even secure employment in a company you’ve been temping for.

2.    Volunteer

Spending a summer volunteering may not be as relaxing as staying at an Alaska fishing lodge, but it is indeed more productive for your future employment. First of all, it looks good on your resume and helps fill in glaring employment gaps. Doing volunteering work demonstrates ambition and readiness for new experiences; it enables you to obtain new skills (project and team management, social skills), find new contacts that may come in handy later on and in general, gives you additional self-confidence.

3.    Learn a Language

Well, a summer certainly won’t be enough to master a new language, but from now on you will rarely have so much free time in bulk. If you choose what studies you want to pursue and make an energetic move in that direction you can lay a solid foundation to build on at your leisure later on. Sign up for an intensive course, join a language immersion program, or go to a foreign country for a few months. Your main goal is to overcome entry-level hurdles – it is the most difficult part of learning any language. After you acquire basic competencies, you can study on with less intensity. After you manage to pass an exam of any level in your chosen language, it will look perfect on your resume.

4.    Get a Smart Part-Time Job

Part-time jobs are an age-old tradition for college students, but waiting tables or flipping burgers won’t move you much closer to landing that much-desired position you’ve been thinking about. If you want your part-time job to be something more than a way to earn a few extra bucks for current expenses, you should set smart goals and choose smart positions. Find an entry-level job that is in any way relevant to the industry you intend to work in, learn the necessary skills, and show that you qualify. In addition to improving your resume, it will give you the real experience of what it is like to work in this industry, and you’ll see whether you really want it.

Students today should start preparing for their future jobs long before they graduate from college – even the first year isn’t too early. And the earlier you understand that summer isn’t the time to relax but to further improve your chances, the more likely you are to land your dream job.

Melissa Burns graduated from the faculty of Journalism of Iowa State University. Nowadays she is an entrepreneur and independent journalist. Follow her @melissaaburns or contact at burns.melissaa@gmail.com

Is Grad School for You?

BY ANTHONY MASTERTON

It’s a big question: what comes after college? Some people join companies, others start companies, and some go straight to graduate school. But how does someone decide if they’re going to need more than a bachelor’s degree to meet their professional and personal goals? And how does someone balance those goals against practical considerations like balancing debt vs. income? Advanced degree programs can be academically intense, making them hard to pursue while working on a career or trying to get a startup off the ground (although that doesn’t stop hundreds of thousands of people from managing it every year).

If you’re considering grad school, ask yourself the following five questions.

1. Does your target career require a graduate degree?

One of the most sensible things to do before you start signing up for placement exams (GRE, GMAT, LSAT, etc.), is to look at job postings–and their requirements–for your occupation. For instance, if you want to provide guidance to high school students, then guess what? Most schools will want you to first obtain a master’s in school counseling, as well as some relevant experience – experience that you’ll need to plan for while still in school. In this case, you’d want to check out local education markets to see if there are good opportunities near any of the graduate schools you might attend. Geographic location is a bigger factor for experience-building than you might guess. It’s also important to consider how competitive the market will be in that location. Some schools may be desperate for counselors, while in other places the supply will far outstrip the demand.

2. What kind of doors do you want opened over time?

A few years ago, The New York Times reported that 2 in 25 people over age 25 have a master’s degree. It’s true that returning to school can become more popular during economic downturns, but that’s not the only factor behind what some experts call “credential inflation.” Year after year, having a bachelor’s degree is becoming more of a base requirement for jobs than a real differentiator. Keep in mind that, in the corporate world especially, there are jobs that won’t seriously consider candidates who don’t have at least a master’s degree (especially jobs beyond a certain level of management). On the other hand, if you are more likely to be starting a company on your own (or joining a startup), a higher-level degree will function more as a general credibility builder; not having one won’t necessarily keep you from moving forward (although having one could certainly make things easier).

3. Are you able to commit the time?

Getting a master’s degree can be an excellent decision for those in career fields that really require it (like the career field of speech pathology), but signing up for another two (or more) years of school isn’t a decision to make lightly. If you are a little hesitant about committing the time, remember to explore your class-structure options.  Many reputable schools offer online degrees that allow you to go to work during the day and take care of your classwork at night, which can mean less disruption in your day-to-day life. Other post-college options for learning key materials and gaining experience in your field include internships and apprenticeships, which are usually shorter than a grad program and can segué directly into full-time jobs. Depending on your goals, these may be a better fit.

4. Can you afford it?

While some programs may provide you with scholarships or financial assistance, graduate degrees rarely come free-of-cost. If you are one of the many people who already has student loan debt, it can be daunting to sign up for even more, especially with a rapidly-changing job market. According to one estimate, about 70 percent of students graduate with some debt, and in a survey, most people said they don’t anticipate paying off all that debt until they’re in their 40s. Graduate degrees are typically more expensive than undergraduate degrees, which means they take longer to clear. That doesn’t mean grad school can’t be the right decision for you, but it does mean you should develop a strong plan for how you will manage additional debt. Of course, with many grad programs, you have the opportunity to work as a graduate assistant, research assistant, or teaching assistant. These opportunities can offer you major tuition breaks, although you will have to be conscious of managing your time and energy.

5. Do you have a backup plan?

If you get partway through graduate school and realize it isn’t for you, you don’t have the time, or you aren’t comfortable with the cost/benefit tradeoffs, you need to have a backup plan. Before you undertake something as time-consuming and costly as graduate school, think through an exit strategy. This is a helpful exercise if you are completely set on graduate school, because you’ll take inventory of all your options. When life gets intense, sometimes just knowing you have options can alleviate pressure and keep you moving forward.

Anthony Masterton is a young entrepreneur trying to break through in the tech world. When he’s not working on growing his young startup, he writes about everything from tech advancements to his own experiences as a young CEO. A self-starter, he likes to help others learn from his own successes and failures, as it’s always most impactful to learn from experience.

Must Have Software Every Student Should Know How to Use

BY DAVID GUTIERREZ

Today it is hard to imagine how students managed to deal with their immense workloads before computers became as ubiquitous as they are today. However, even if you actively use your PC for your everyday studying activities, chances are you don’t utilize its full potential. Here is the list of software tools that can further improve your efficiency and safety of your data.

1.    LibreOffice

Office software is certainly among the most crucial tools for a student, and the first one that comes to mind is most likely Microsoft Office. However, it has one significant drawback – it is quite expensive, especially if you take into account that most students hardly use more than 5 percent of its functionality. LibreOffice is a completely free and just as powerful alternative. Even if you have been using MS Office for your entire life, switching to it is no problem – its interface is slightly different in design, but that’s about all.

2.    R-Studio

We all know that it is important to make regular backups of our most vital data – hard drives fail and tend to do so at the least opportune moments. However, in reality, most of us tend to forget about it until it is too late. And there is hardly any less pleasant situation than having a huge assignment you’ve spent weeks or even months on wiped out due to hard drive failure or a power outage during the system update. R-Studio is a powerful tool aimed at solving this problem – in addition to simply restoring lost data, it is capable of even more impressive feats like encrypted disk recovery – even if your OS has been installed over an encrypted file system, there is a good chance that your data can be restored with its help.

3.    Acronis True Image

If you want to be even more protected from data loss, you can eliminate the element of randomness and human forgetfulness from your backups. Acronis True Image makes backup creation routine to be as easy as possible, allowing you to set the folders you want to be backed up, define how often you want it to be done and leave the rest to it.

4.    Cold Turkey Blocker

A PC is not just an awesome tool but a source of endless distractions as well. We all know this feeling: you have a huge, intimidating and extremely boring assignment to do and keep on finding pretexts to take a peek at this or that website just for a couple of minutes before you start… only to find out two hours later that you are watching your 43^rd cat video on YouTube. Cold Turkey Blocker is excellent for students who have trouble dealing with procrastination: it simply prevents you from visiting your favorite time-waster websites while you work. The paid version can even block applications.

5.    OneNote

Whatever discipline you study you are going to spend a lot of time doing, reviewing, analyzing and recompiling your notes. OneNote makes all related activities fast, easy and comfortable. In addition to that, it can serve as a sort of hub for all your work and shared files: you can attach articles to review them later on and share your notes with your fellow students to discuss some points. It has mobile versions, which means that your notes will always be at hand wherever you are.

There are, of course, hundreds of other useful software tools that can make students’ life easier, more comfortable and enjoyable, but these five can serve as an excellent foundation of your toolset – feel free to add to them as you like

David Gutierrez has worked in the field of web design since 2005. Right now he started learning Java in order to get second occupation. His professional interests defined major topics of his articles. David writes about new web design software, recently discovered professional tricks and also monitors the latest updates of the web development.

Good news for C students and English majors – tech jobs are for you, too, study says

5 Easy Steps for Student Success in IT Career

BY SYLVIA KOHL

IT jobs are certainly among the most promising and desired careers of our time, and this trend isn’t likely to let up any time soon. Even if you don’t intend to be a programmer or web developer, a certain degree of expertise in this area is going to help a lot – with every passing year, other industries get more and more dependent on information technology. So what should a student do to ensure his success in IT? Let’s find out.

1.    Choose Courses with Focus on Employability

If you intend to work in IT, ideally you should have some idea of what exactly you want to do. As long as you don’t plan to pursue an academic career (and if you read this article you probably don’t), you should limit your choices to courses making emphasis on practical methods of learning. Pay attention to the ones that include numerous practical projects, placements to work for real clients and other opportunities to obtain real-life work experience. It will help you lay a solid foundation for your future career.

2.    Supplement Your Studies with Online Courses

IT is an incredibly volatile and rapidly developing area of expertise, and college courses often lag behind the actual developments it undergoes (traditional education is in general slow to adapt to changes in the environment). It means that if you want to keep abreast of the industry, you should take matters into your own hands and sign up for additional courses. There are many online services like SkillsBuild that provide high-quality training in current IT skills.

3.    Get a Strong and Broad Foundation in Computer Sciences

Even if you have a clear idea of what kind of career you want to pursue, don’t be in a hurry to get deep into this discipline. You may find yourself halfway through a course you that don’t want to finish after all, and that isn’t of much use for other branches of the industry. Before you dive deep into anything specific, specialists in IT always recommend getting a solid grounding in general computer sciences. It will make it easier to understand how things work and make an informed choice of your future career later on.

4.    Obtain Necessary Non-Technical (or “Soft”) Skills

Technical skills aren’t the only area of knowledge an IT specialist should be excellent at. There is a host of other competencies you are going to need: project management, interpersonal communication, ability to work well in a team and so on. Employers highly value all of them, and if you concentrate solely on acquiring technical skills, you may find yourself lagging behind competitors who are just better at communication.

5.    Participate in IT Competitions

The best way to test your skills and force yourself to grow is to set yourself against the best, both among your peers and throughout the industry. All kinds of computer science competitions, both local and large-scale, are held every year, and you should try to find a way into every one that deals with your area of the industry. They are useful not just for testing your abilities and challenging your limits – they look good on CV as well.

6.    Join a CTE Program

Career and Technical Education programs may have been in decline for the last few decades, but they don’t deserve to be forgotten. They provide practical skills currently in demand on the job market and give you a chance to land a good job soon after completing them. The best CTE programs are directly connected with employers and even allow you to transfer credits to community college, giving you a much-needed boost in case you decide to pursue a degree. If you are in doubt, remember that CTE participation means higher wages, especially if you proceed beyond introductory courses.

7.    Career Pathways Movement

Career Pathways Movement is based on the idea that everybody needs additional education beyond high school but that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a 4-year college degree. CPM is meant to provide high school graduates with an easier entry point into middle-skill vocations, with IT fields constituting a significant part of them. President’s last year executive order drastically increased the number of apprenticeships – the primary instrument of CTM – giving you a much better chance of getting one than it was previously possible. Apprenticeships are also getting more and more connected with the community and technical colleges, giving students an opportunity to start planning their future careers at an early stage.

If you intend to pursue a career in IT, there are good and bad news for you. The good news is that even if you don’t have special academic education in this area, you have a chance to obtain the necessary skills through practice and online courses. The bad news is that information technology is an area of expertise that requires your entire attention and calls for constant self-improvement – if you want to be good at it, you have to work on yourself all the time. We hope that these tips will help you determine your way.

Sylvia Kohl is an IT teacher with more than 8 years of professional experience. Her main spheres of interest are e-education and she convinced that learning process doesn’t stop after years in school and university.

Summer Melt: One Third of Fall College-Bound Students Do Not Make It to Campus