My Five Tips for College Survival

 
An e-mail came to me a few hours ago from a fellow student who was contacted by W+K looking for some college survival tips. Well, for me, it comes down to simply being prepared and doing things for yourself. I don’t know what originally spurred me into this mindset, but I am glad that I am there. I am curious by nature, and I believe that with the right amount of googling, reading or talking to experts that anything can be accomplished. So long as you have the creativity to think of something, you should be able to find a way to do it or at least stick your neck out there and try.
 
So, what were my tips? Here ya go:
 
1. Don’t wait for professors to teach you something – learn the shit yourself and let them help you refine it.
•Seriously, if you think you can get by without having learn things on your own you are dead wrong. Also, with the speed at which technology moves, you can learn about new technology and become an expert just as easily as your professors. What your professors have, however, is the analytical fortitude and experience to help you polish and refine the reason or purpose for using that technology.
 
2. Keep your computer clean and tidy and back up everything.
I can’t tell you  how frustrating it is to hear people blame their computer for running slow or crashing and then seeing 17,000 random files on their desktop, a few hundred large PDFs in their downloads folder, every program up and running at once, 38 tabs open in firefox and a bittorrent client that is on and wide open to the public.
• Step one: Delete files that you don’t need. Period.
• Step two: Keep the files you do need well organized.
• Step three: Empty your downloads folder and clean your browser’s cache
• Step four: Buy an external harddrive or two (I have three) and keep your files there instead of on your computer. Do you really need that WR121 paper from four years ago still on your computer?
• Step five: Find your operating system back up disk and learn how to format your harddrive and reinstall it. Clean installs are heavenly. If you don’t know how to do this, see my first tip.
 
3. Get to know your professors.
• Most professors are an amazing wealth of knowledge and bank of good contacts. Remember that 50% (made up number) of college is contacts, internships and networking and your profs are your best source for all of these.
 
4. Think of every assignment as a portfolio piece for a very import interview.
• Okay, maybe not every assignment but at least the bigger ones. Even if you know an assignment is not going in your portfolio, you should craft it as though it is. Remember what I said about professors knowing contacts? Well, they’re likely to talk about you to those contacts if they see that you put a lot of thought into your work and go beyond what’s expected. Do it big.
 
5. Get lots of sleep.
• It took me a few years to realize that a good night’s sleep combined with schedule planning is far better for my body and for my work than trying to do everything last minute at 3 a.m. I get sick less now and I feel refreshed and ready for whatever school/work throws at me.