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 the transition from a comfortable, familiar life into a new, exciting, and sometimes intimidating world. On the Web you'll find sites with tips to help you adjust and make the most of college life, as well as some Web applications that can help you keep in touch with friends and family from home.
Dulcinea's Insight
- The best resource to help you make the most of your college "career" will probably be your college or university itself. Many schools have resources such as clubs and activities, sports, student support (academic, physical, and mental), gyms, libraries, computer labs, and much more; most of these resources are provided to students at little or no cost. The easiest way to find out what resources your school offers is to check its Web site. MIT has a list of college sites.
- For some ideas for decorating your dorm, try our findingDucinea Decorating Guide.
- Some college admissions offices are now enlisting students to write honest (and sometimes uncensored) blogs about student life. MIT, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins are just a few examples of universities using this practice. Check to see if your school has anything like this in place. If not, check out the ones mentioned above to get a feel for the joys and frustrations of college life.
- A fast, cheap way to stay in touch is through e-mail; most universities provide students with an e-mail account for free. If a friend or family member does not have an e-mail account where you can reach them, let them know that it is easy to set up an account with a free provider such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo!.
- Starting a blog can be a good way to let friends and family know what you're up to without having to call or e-mail each person individually. Many blog sites give you your own blog for free; some examples are Wordpress, Blogger, and LiveJournal.
- For more resources for keeping in touch with friends or family, see our findingDulcinea Family Guide.
Dulcinea's Picks
To help you adjust to college/dorm life ...
Students.gov
is a government site with plenty of links to help you stay healthy and happy during college. Try the "Campus Life" section for information about relocating to college, consumer information, an extensive list of links to health information, and more.
Next Step Magazine
has articles to help make your life as a student happy and full of activity. Although the majority of the information on Next Step's homepage has information for prospective students, there is plenty of information for current college students, too, if you know where to look. Use the pull-down menu on the articles to browse by topic; college students will find the "How to survive student life," "How to play college sports," and "How to study abroad" sections especially helpful.
CollegeBoard.com
has a list of short articles that can help you make the most of your college career. Find tips on how to adjust to college life and how to choose your college classes, advice to help you write a college paper, even a checklist of items to bring with you to college.
CollegeJournal
is a handy reading resource for students in college and is owned by The Wall Street Journal. This online publication offers plenty of articles packed with advice you can use during college and to help you plan for your career after school. You'll also find a variety of free resources such as "College Calculators" that help you calculate things such as GPA and the value of your education, and track your budget.
To help you keep in touch with friends in school and around the world ...
Meebo
lets you access almost any of your instant messaging programs from any location. You won't have to install any new software to use Meebo-especially valuable when you are traveling or not on your home computer.
Adium
is a free, downloadable application for Macs that combines instant messaging programs so that you can see and chat with all of your "buddies" from one program. Although you can't access Adium remotely as you can with Meebo, Adium is compatible with more instant messaging programs.
Facebook
allows you to search and connect with other users by school, name, or shared profile details. Through the many applications (both internal and those created by third parties) you can share photos and "tag" friends in a digital photo album, write messages on public "walls," send private messages to friends, give virtual "gifts" to friends, and much more. This is a good way to keep up with the happenings of your friends without a great deal of effort.
MySpace
offers you the ability to display some of your "top friends" on your own profile page, set a favorite song to play when others look at your profile, and even imbed video onto your profile page. Many celebrities, music groups, comedians, and video producers who want to showcase their talent or craft all have MySpace profiles.
For parents of new or soon-to-be college students ...
College Parents of America
provides a mix of books, Web sites, and articles that can help ease the transition to college for your children, help manage your finances (and theirs), find tips for their success in academics, find resources for physical and mental health, even a list of "Words to Know" that will help you understand what your children are talking about when they come home from school.
Staying organized in college
One way to make sure that you are successful in college is to keep yourself organized; the Internet has a number of tools to help you stay on top of your own assignments and tools to help you organize and track group projects.
Dulcinea's Insight
- If you want to get organized without adding another brand new application to your computer, consider using the calendar feature of a Web search engine or application you already use, such as Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook.
- Many college courses use some sort of online tool to keep students up to date on assignments and grades and even allow them to turn in papers or participate in discussions online. If your professor isn't using an application like this, you may consider suggesting that you start a course blog so that students can stay updated.
Dulcinea's Picks
To keep yourself organized ...
30 Boxes
is very simple to set up but has a surprisingly large number of additional features. When you create your free account you'll be able set the calendar to show up on your blog or MySpace page, import contacts from your e-mail accounts, integrate the calendar with your Facebook account, and even upload an avatar of yourself to display with your calendar.
HipCal
is a free online calendar and to-do list with some added features: it'll send you e-mail or cellphone alerts about important events, and you'll be able to create group calendars to coordinate for a school, work, or other project.
Spongecell
has an interface that makes adding or editing your free calendar as easy as clicking on the item. You can publish an RSS feed of your events, share your calendar through e-mail, or even sync your calendar with your iPod.
To keep group projects organized ...
StikiPad
calls itself a personal wiki. You can create and edit pages of text, allow others to view or edit your pages (and StikiPad displays who made what changes and when), use templates to create stylized pages, even compare edits from different versions of a document. StikiPad also has a to-do list feature, and lets you create an author profile for yourself for other viewers to see.
Backpack
allows you to create what it calls "pages." On the pages you'll be able to keep to-do lists, create a page title, attach files for others to download, and attach pictures. Backpack also has a calendar feature and gives you the ability to share pages or calendar events with others for collaboration. Backpack offers a free account with limited features, and a few different paid plans that range from $5-$14/month.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets
isn't a calendar, but it is a good way to track changes made to a document by multiple users (if you are, say, writing a group paper or taking group notes). Google Docs allows you to view previous versions and even revert to an old version of a document if you like. You can share a document with others and give them privileges to edit or just to view it. You can also export documents to word processing programs or as HTML to a Web page.
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 time to develop healthy habits that will stick with you throughout your life. Online you'll find the resources you need to make healthy choices, or to find support to improve your physical or mental health.
Dulcinea's Insight
- Many schools offer some type of mental or physical healthcare or health insurance for free or at greatly reduced costs. Try your college's Web site to see if it offers any of these programs.
- For a very extensive and helpful list of sites to aid you in any medical need or endeavor, see the findingdulcinea Health Guide, Nutrition Guide, or Fitness Guide.
- Use your college's Web site to figure out if you can join a sports team (recreational or varsity); this can be a great way to stay in shape and meet new people. If your school has a recreation center or athletic facility, you can often find hours of operation and information about any special classes or activities on your school's Web site.
- College students have a tendency to make getting enough sleep a low priority; try reading our findingDulcinea Sleep Guide to find out how important sleep really is, or to help you combat sleep issues such as insomnia.
Dulcinea's Picks
To help you develop good nutrition habits ...
Associated Content
has an article, "Tips for the College Student: Conquering Unhealthy Eating Habits," that provides some practical advice such as avoiding sugary drinks. Another article on this site, "Healthy Eating Habits and Dining Halls: 10 Tips for College Students," will prove useful if you're going to be living in a dormitory or group home and want to maintain healthy eating habits.
The Washington Post
interviewed young author Daphne Oz, who wrote "The Dorm Room Diet: The 8-step Program For Creating a Healthy Lifestyle That Really Works." In this interview, you'll get a few tips from Oz about how to stay healthy and enjoy college living. You can find the book for sale on Amazon.
The World's Healthiest Foods
is a collection of recipes and tips from the nonprofit organization The George Mateljan Foundation for the World's Healthiest Foods. Get meal ideas with their daily menu of healthy foods to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and learn what their "food of the week" is and why.
Dr. Gourmet
gives you some healthier alternatives from the menus of some popular fast food spots. If you must eat it, here's what Dr. Gourmet thinks you should choose.
Global Health and Fitness
has a long list of resources including a fat calculator, calorie calculator, and a fiber calculator. The first few links in the "Free Tools" section may seem suspect because of their offers for free eBooks, but Global Health and Fitness is a legitimate site.
MyPyramid.gov
has the updated food pyramid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Learn why the pyramid from 10 years ago has gotten a face lift.
To keep your body healthy ...
"Healthy Living"
from students.gov has a list of links to organizations and information to help keep you healthy during college. You'll find resources to help you deal with issues like obesity, substance abuse, changing your habits to create a healthier lifestyle, and information about disease.
HealthAtoZ
has a fitness portal that is a good introduction to getting and staying fit. It provides visitors with a logical overview of fitness that begins with articles on where (and how) to start exercising and progresses to cardio, strength training, sports, and mind/body fitness. This site has in-depth coverage of individual sports, and its detailed exercise guides are aided by demos illustrating proper form.
For mental health resources ...
CampusBlues
provides links to the mental health services or departments at a large number of colleges. While this site does not include every university in the United States, it does provide quite a few articles to help you understand and maintain mental and physical health during college. Issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, weight loss, homesickness, and depression are among the topics found here. You'll also be provided with links and phone numbers of organizations that can help you cope with the troubles or concerns you may encounter during college.
For health insurance options ...
HealthDecisions
is one of the Web's premier portals for health insurance information. Users not familiar with how insurance works or what their options are should start by visiting the "Learning Center." It's here that you'll find a beginner's guide to insurance, a useful FAQ section, and definitions to acronyms like HMO, PPO, HSA, and HDHP. The "Insurance Locator" can help you find insurance in your area.
To locate a free or inexpensive medical clinic ...
The Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC)
has a directory to help visitors locate free medical clinics in their area. Choose the state you're looking for, pick a county, and BPHC produces a list of clinics with descriptions of the services they offer, along with contact information. These clinics provide medical care regardless of whether you have money or health insurance.
Student Financial Aid, College Budgeting, and Saving Money
Just as developing a healthy lifestyle in college is important, developing money-management skills and wise spending habits is imperative during your college years. Careless spending during these years (especially of student loans) can lead to a lifetime of debt. On the Web you'll find advice, calculators, tips to help you save, and other money-management resources to help ease your money worries during college.
Dulcinea's Insight
- You can keep track of you bank accounts, bills, and student loans online, and most of your creditors let you make payments via the Web. For some people it can be easier to use the Internet to manage expenses than it can be to remember to write and send checks to pay bills each month. Also, if you forget to write all of your spending in your checkbook, you can reference and monitor spending through your bank's Web site (this can also help you detect fraud early).
- Consider buying used textbooks and selling your textbooks when you are done with them (hang on to the books you might use for later classes, though). Some college bookstores offer book buyback or online book sales; check your bookstore's Web site for more details.
- Try to catch a ride with another student to save money on gas, or see if there is any bartering that you can do for items you need (books, furniture, whatever). Uloop aims to help students connect with each other to do just that.
- For some general finance advice, see our findingDulcinea Personal Finance Guide.
- To save money on everyday objects that you need to buy, see our findingDulcinea Bargain Hunting Guide.
- For more sites to help you find a great job during college, see our findingDulcinea Part-Time Jobs Guide.
- Not sure how you'll fund your education? See our findingDulcinea Financing College Guide.
- Try student travel Web sites to book travel (listed below), but don't forget to check travel prices on regular discount sites. For more budget travel resources, see our findingDulcinea Budget Travel Web Guide.
Dulcinea's Picks
For help with financial aid ...
TuitionCoach
provides free access to its college cost estimator, its financial aid worksheets, the Financial Aid 101, FAQs, and a glossary. Paid membership to the site runs about $60/year and gives you access to audio podcasts about funding college and sections of the site that help you minimize college costs and figure out what kinds of financial aid would best suit your needs.
EducationPlanner.org
has an "Educational Loans" section that gives you brief explanations of all the different kinds of student loans, how they work, and for whom they might be best suited. The "Private Loans" page discusses only the private loan affiliated with this site, but the site is still a good reference for government loan information
FinAid
explains the different types of student loan options along with a table that shows the percentage of students that borrow money for school and how much debt they accumulate on average. FinAid also has a section on "Education Lenders, Guarantee Agencies, Servicers and Secondary Markets" [http://www.finaid.org/loans/studentloans.phtml] that helps you understand where loan money comes from and who manages it through each stage of the lending process.
Bankrate
has a "College Financing Basics" section with a chapter about federal loans and grants that lets you know what you need to qualify for federal student aid and then explains federal work-study, different types of federal loans, and federal grant programs.
To find a job during college ...
CollegeHelpers.com
hosts a listing of internships, part-time jobs, and summer jobs for college students looking to work off-campus. This Web site is geared toward students, employers, and even colleges' resource centers.
The Riley Guide
recommends several Web sites for finding part-time, hourly, or temporary employment. It sums up the sites it recommends and even gives little warnings (like if drug tests or background checks are required), not unlike Dulcinea's Picks.
Groove Job
has a clientele of several large companies looking for part-time, hourly, or seasonal employees. Start by typing your zip code into the search box in the upper right-hand corner of the page and then go on to see companies in your area. Click on a logo to discover any restrictions and to find more job specifications.
Craigslist
could be helpful if you are looking for part-time or freelance work during school. Click on your city, then choose an industry, "part time," or "ETC" to see what jobs might be available near school.
For budgeting tips and tools ...
"118 Ways to Save Money in College"
from College Scholarships.org has some practical (and interesting) tips for saving money. From the expected ("Pay credit card bills on time") to the unusual ("Find restaurants that let you bring your own beer"), you'll find lots of creative ways to keep your cash in your wallet.
"27 Money Tips for College Students"
from the blog Get Rich Slowly provides some common sense advice to college students about avoiding poor spending habits. All the tips in this post will prove helpful to any student looking to manage their budget.
Moneytrackin'
is a free online application that lets you track your expenses. Although it might not be reasonable to track all your finances through this site (as checking your bank account online would probably be an easier way to track your personal accounts), this is a great tool to track expenses/payments shared by roommates, or to track school-specific or work expenses for tax purposes.
For student tax information ...
The Internal Revenue Service
has lots of resources that can help you make sure that you are being taxed appropriately as a student. You'll find information about tax credits, what income or financial aid might be taxable, and a page with documents and forms specific to students.
To save money on books ...
Reduce College Costs
has a "Secret Textbook Savings" entry that provides some tips from the blog about how to get cheap, or free, textbooks. For example, try to find a copy in your school's library or purchase an edition of the book that was printed internationally.
BookFinder.com
sells textbooks directly from the bookseller. Search for a book by title, author, or ISBN and you'll be able to see the price for the book from different sellers around the Web with shipping included.
Amazon
has a very large selection of used textbooks, both from Amazon itself and from independent sellers that sell through the site. If you know what books you'll need before classes begin, this can be a good way to get low-priced textbooks, just be aware of additional time and cost needed for shipping.
To travel cheaply ...
STA Travel
is not only an online travel-booking resource (air, rail, hotel, hostel, and more) for students; you can also locate an STA office nearby to get in-person help from a travel agent when planning a trip. STA often has writing/blogging contests about student travel that reward winners with travel money and other prizes.
StudentUniverse
provides travel search and booking at discounted rates for students. In addition to a straightforward interface, this site has a "Study" section where students can search for study and volunteer abroad opportunities, international internship opportunities, and language schools.
To learn something for free ...
Lifehacker's Technophilia
feature has an article called "Get a Free College Education Online" that lists plenty of free lectures and other course information that you can access online.
The Online Education Database
has a list of more than 200 free learning resources including research materials, open courseware collections, archives, podcasts, videos, and other tools to help you further your higher education without the price tag of enrolling in a class or university.
© 2009 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
