College Grad Lessons

College students can be a tricky group to shop for, so I asked college students and recent college grads for gift ideas. Overall, practical gifts are best when shopping for a college student. Here are some of the suggestions that I got, as well as some that have always been my favorites to give and get: Read the rest of this entry »

In the survey that I posted on Saturday, I asked college students and recent graduates what makes them nervous about life after college graduation. I got some great responses and have also thought of a few of my own. So here’s the list of what makes college students nervous about life after college graduation.

1. The economy and the strain it will have on the job market
2. Paying off student loans while still affording housing, food, etc.
3. Getting into a good grad school Read the rest of this entry »
   

Thanks to everyone that posted! Expect an e-mail from me to get your mailing address so I can send you cookies. Check back later today for a write up about your responses and to see my answers to the survey questions.

I hope everyone’s exams are going well!

One of my friends, Melinda, sent me a facebook message last night saying she finally got the chance to check out the blog while she was taking a break from writing a paper that was due at midnight. I was thrilled that she had a chance to check out the blog and enjoyed it, but her message also reminded me that I was glad I wasn’t writing papers or studying for exams on a Friday night.

For those of you that are going through final exam week, here’s a quick survey to take during a study break. Post a comment on this post with your answers and I’ll bake cookies and mail them to the people that answer first and tenth, as well as for one random person that posts between those two. If we get past twenty comments, I’ll pick two more random people. If you’re a college grad, please join in too! The survey will end Monday at midnight (Eastern Standard Time).

Here are the questions:

1. What do you want to be when you grow up if it could be anything and why?

2. What are you (or were you) nervous about after graduating from college?

3. What’s the best holiday gift for a college student?

I look forward to reading your posts! Please share this with people by posting the link in your Facebook status, on your blog, on Twitter, etc.

This morning I realized that I had 757 e-mails in my inbox at work. Not okay.

So I set a goal for myself - never have more than 100 e-mails in my inbox. Eventually I’d like to get that number down more, but I’m going to take it one step at a time.

I went through all of my e-mails and deleted e-mails related to completed projects, as well as newsletters, LISTSERVs and college-wide e-mails. Then I combed through more recent e-mails and got read of anything that I had responded to already and did not contain important information. Finally I managed to get down to 75 e-mails. Not bad!

In order to better manage my e-mail inbox, I plan to:

1. Save documents I receive to the appropriate project folder on my desktop immediately.
2. Delete e-mails that I’ve already replied to, especially if I expect a response back. Their reply will contain the chain of e-mails that I have gone back and forth anyways.
3. Clean up every Friday morning. When my day is busy, I often leave e-mails untouched. I see them and respond if necessary, but leave the e-mail in place to remind me of any action items.

Hopefully next Friday my inbox will be down to 50 e-mails.

Last year when I was considering law schools, it was easy to quickly determine the credibility of a program and admissions standards. There are endless articles about applying to law school, as well as multiple school rankings.

Recently decided that I wanted to pursue a career in interactive web design and information architecture - something I’ve been interested in for a long time, but never considered it as a career path for some reason. The challenge I’ve been faced with is that there aren’t rankings for the niche that I’m interested in. It’s easy enough to find an art school program for web design or something related. There are also library sciences programs with information architecture degrees, as well as computer science focused options like human-computer interaction. All of these could lead to something I’d be interested in, but might not build a diverse enough set of skills. I needed find the perfect graduate school.

Here was my plan of attack for finding the perfect grad school: Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I decided that I want to take the GRE next month. Obviously that
leaves me with very little time to study. Instead of stressing or trying to
cram hours of studying in each day, I decided to come up with a manageable
plan and just do the best I can.

The main focus of my study plan will be studying vocabulary words, so I’m challenging myself to learn 20 words a day for 30 days. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the challenges I had when transitioning from college life to working full-time was that everything on my personal to do list had to be completed in the evening or on weekends. Add in the 10:30 bed time that is required in order for me to get 8 hours of sleep and my evenings seemed too short to get anything done.

Over the past week I’ve decided that I want to take the GRE and start working out. I’ll post more about my study and workout plan later this week, but in this post I’m going to share how I plan to get more done each evening.

Over the past month or two, my evening schedule has included eating dinner, hanging out with my housemates, going out with friends for dinner or a drink, cleaning, running errands and watching TV.

I typically have 5 hours from the time I get home to the time I go to sleep. In order to make the most out of my evening time, I’m going to try to keep to the following schedule: Read the rest of this entry »