The College Strategy Guide

If you want to find yourself, move to Nepal. If you want to create yourself, go to college. High school is over. Your hometown is now a vacation spot. And whoever you used to be has no bearing on who you can be. No one knows what you looked like in seventh grade. No one knows who your parents are. No one knows any of those embarrassing stories you’ve been hoping people would forget. No one has any previous knowledge of you at all; so who you are NOW is who you are. It’s time to create yourself. It’s time to figure out what you like and who you like. It’s time to be what YOU want. I realize how cheesy that may sound. You may have even rolled your eyes at the idea. But here’s the deal; four or five years from now you’re going to be a completely different person whether you like it or not. Experiences, relationships, and how you spend your time are going to drastically alter who you are. The question is whether you’ll see it and appreciate it as it happens or if you’ll wake up one day and wonder what happened to you. The better you understand the decisions you’re making and how they affect you, the more you’ll enjoy college as it happens. And the less likely you are to have a “Where did all the time go; why didn’t I slow down to appreciate it” moment. This is quite possibly the hardest thing about college, which is why I put it first in this book. If you can master this, if you can train yourself to revel in experiences as they occur, then you stand a good chance of dominating college. I’m not saying you’ll leave out of here with a 4.0. But college is about a lot more than grades.

Motion Sensors

A lot of toilets you find on campus flush using motion sensors. And it’s great because you no longer have to stumble across what someone else left behind. However, the sensor can be a real hassle when you’re trying to use the bathroom. If you move at all, the toilet tends to notice it and will often flush prematurely. (And a wet butt is no fun for anybody.) To avoid this, take a small stretch of toilet paper and drape it over the sensor before you sit down. Just be sure to remove it when you’re done.

Fat Cells

Once your body creates fat cells, they never go away. They can deflate, but they’re impossible to get rid of. (That’s why it’s so easy to gain the weight back after you lose it.) So all the fat cells you create now are going to be with you for the rest of your life. By gaining 15 pounds your first semester you’re setting yourself up to gain even more weight later. But let’s say you start working out and lose the 15 pounds in the second semester. Well, you’ve emptied those fat cells, but they are ready and willing to be filled back up again. Your body is going to naturally gain weight as you age. That’s just part of life. But you don’t have to jump-start the process when you’re eighteen.

Buying Software

Don’t buy ANYTHING until you’re sure you can’t get it for free. Universities offer a lot of different programs, from anti-viruses to video editing software, for free. So before you buy anything, check with the university to see what they offer. (Some of it might not be listed on the website, so ask around.) And anything they don’t give away for free, you can probably get at a discount just for being a student. The internet is the land of the student deal where companies offer awesome discounts if you’re enrolled in school. All you have to do is search for it. There are a bunch of great websites out there; there are a lot of scams too. So be careful.

On-Campus Ministries (food)

You need to seek out the on-campus ministries and find out when they do lunch. A lot of them provide home cooked meals one day a week and only charge a few bucks for it. Plus the various denominations tend to do different days which means you can eat a good lunch for cheap on multiple afternoons. But you don’t believe what they do? Who cares. This is college. It’s OK to hang around people with different beliefs. Plus, good food for cheap is something we can all believe in.