College Life: Resources and Tips for College Students
Whether you're going off to college for the very first time, or are a returning student, you can find the help you need with our College Life Web Guide. Succeed academically, physically, financially and emotionally during your college years with advice on dorm life, health and finances, as well as Web tools for academic success. Don't go off to school without first checking our College Life Web Guide.
Expand All Guide SectionsDorm Life and Keeping in Touch with Friends
For many students, going to college involves a physical move away from family and old friends and ... read more »
Staying organized in college
One way to make sure that you are successful in college is to keep yourself organized; the Internet ... read more »
Note-taking and academic tools for university students
Getting organized is one giant step toward academic success, but there are plenty of other tools that can help you get the most out of your studies and maybe even move to the head of the class.
Dulcinea's Insight
- Try the findingDulcinea Internet Research Guide for information about searching online, scholarly search resources, and additional citation resources.
- Check your school's Web site; many schools provide tutors, writing help, or study centers that offer these services for free or at low cost.
- Plagiarism can lead to very serious consequences that include a failing course grade and even expulsion from school. The findingDulcinea Teaching Resources Guide includes antiplagiarism tools; some of these tools also provide tips about how to avoid plagiarism.
- For a great resource for news in your field of study, try the Beyond the Headlines section of findingDulcinea.com.
- The reference tools below are not meant to take the place of studying your course material or attending class. If you're struggling in class, talk to your professor. She may even be able to suggest additional online resources to supplement your classroom learning.
Dulcinea's Picks
For general advice for college success ...
Online Education Database
has a College Basics section that provides some really useful articles that are full of Web sites and tips to help you succeed in college. You'll find alternatives to some generic Web tools along with advice about study habits, finance, and college life.
For taking notes...
mynoteIT
is more than just a free online note-taking application. Sure, you can create an account, add your classes, and use the note-taking feature to take and save notes on the site, but you can also upload notes you've taken in offline documents (such as Word or Notepad), keep track of upcoming assignments, access your notes via mobile phone, search the text of your notes, and ask questions of the mynoteIT community through message boards. This site is a great way to take, track, and organize notes and research for class.
Clipmarks
is an application that lets you save and share the best sections of Web pages. Unlike other social bookmarking tools, Clipmarks stores only the section of the site that you want (a paragraph, a word, whatever). It's a good way to store or share important bits of Web research.
i-Lighter
is a free highlighter for the Web. Not only can you highlight sections of Web pages, but you can make notes on pages, e-mail pages complete with highlights and notes to friends, and tag your page to a Delicious account or to your i-Lighter folder.
Wizlite
allows you to highlight certain words, paragraphs, or sections of Web pages to save for yourself or to share with friends, but its interface is a bit more user-friendly than i-Lighter's. However, Wizlite only works with the Firefox Internet browser. You can download this application for free and then create an account for yourself or connect with other users to create a group in which you can all highlight the same pages to collaborate.
For citation and bibliography creation ...
EasyBib
is a free online tool that lets you choose the type of resource you want to cite. It then prompts you to fill in the necessary citation information and automatically creates a list that you can save or print. After you create each citation, it prompts you to create another until you decide to stop.
Ottobib
only needs you to enter the ISBN of a book and it creates a full citation.
Zotero
is a free Firefox extension that gathers citation information, full text, Web pages, and images from sites as you browse.
To help you locate a tutor ...
TutorLinker.com
is a quick way to find out if there is a tutor in your area. Just enter your complete address and you'll see a Google map with a little icon for your home and then icons of tutors who are nearby. Hover your mouse over a tutor to get a little more information including the area she serves; click on the tutor to get a more detailed profile (with hourly rate and area of expertise) along with contact information.
For tools that provide quick reference ...
SparkNotes
offers free, short, and very specific study guides on a wide variety of topics in subjects including history, film, literature, math, language, and more. If you want an overview of the history of the Roman Empire or the plot summary of "Casablanca," this is the place to go. SparkNotes also has a variety of printable charts and reference materials as well as test prep materials and college application tools. You can access content online for free, or pay a small fee per document to download and print for offline reference.
For news sources ...
The New York Times' Knowledge Network
has a page specific to college resources. Select your academic discipline and you'll find archived articles from the Times in your field of study; almost any subject you can think of is covered. If you have an e-mail address that ends in "edu" you can sign up to get free e-mail alerts whenever articles in your discipline appear in the paper.
Who knew?
RateMyProfessors.com
allows you to rate or read ratings of professors at your school. These ratings can be helpful if you are trying to decide which professors to take for which classes, because they provide anonymous and at times very blunt evaluations of a professor (not what you are going to get on the professor evaluation slips that most schools use for official purposes). Keep in mind, however, that because students can rate professors anonymously, some ratings might be heavily influenced by personal feelings (positive or negative) rather than typical student experiences.
College Health and Nutrition
Academic success is not the only goal for a college student; your college years are also a good ... read more »
Student Financial Aid, College Budgeting, and Saving Money
Just as developing a healthy lifestyle in college is important, developing money-management skills ... read more »
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