I am writing a college advice book. It will keep me sane.

[sorcyress]

I had to find it out the Hard Way, or: How am I supposed to get a 4.0 if no one tells me anything important?

Advice #1: The day, or the hour, or a few minutes before your classes, go and find all the classrooms so you know where they are, and whether or not their in the right building. This way, you won't have to arrive at your class juuust on time, only to then run halfway across the campus to get to where it was moved.*

Advice #2: Look around in your library. No, I mean REALLY look around. Find out if there's more to it, hidden up a flight of stairs. Like a giant youth fiction section with a pop-up book of Alice in Wonderland in it.

Advice #3: Steal food from the meal hall. No, not *actual* stealing. But grab that extra apple that you know you're just not going to be hungry enough to eat. It means that when you miss meals, you'll have something at home to make up for it.

Plus, if you steal a banana, you can get people to ask if that really IS a banana in your pocket...

Advice #3a: Throw away the fruit that's been sitting on your desk a month and has gone bad. Please.

*************

Soyeah. I am apparently writing a book to keep me sane. Not the first time that's happened.

*(((The real pain in the ass about this particular situation was that the English class that I thought was in University Hall was actually RIGHT ACROSS THE HALL from my Statistics class. Which are both three flights of stairs down from my dorm room. )))

INOTHERNEWS!

Katters, how much of your real name am I allowed to use in ST&J? Because the bit I'm writing very much has me being all semi-scoldy and whatthehell, and it works better if I'd use your name.

That's all for now. Off to lunch. (See rule three. *grins*)

~Sor
MOOP!

Comments

[ksatyr.livejournal.com]

I believe I may have mentioned #3 a few times. Also, had you watched Buffy Season 4, you'd have seen that in there somewhere too.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

You may have been where I got it from. All my advice is stolen.

~Sor

[ednoria.livejournal.com]

I don't know how big your campus is, but I always found it fun to make it a weekly or monthly project to visit some building I'd never visited before, and walk through the whole thing just to see what/who was in there. I found some really interesting places that way.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

My campus isn't too huge, but I live in the middle of Cambridge. I'll totally do that!

~Sor

[shield-toad111.livejournal.com]

But if you keep the month old fruit, you can collect fruit flies from it, sex them, bottle them up, and perform genetic experiments on them!

[jarne.livejournal.com]

You're reminding me of my old Bio teacher.

Raise your hands everyone! How many of you were thinking what I was thinking?

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I'm quite sure that my roommate would be just THRILLED with that idea.

~Sor

[miriampenguin.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, definitely on #1. Basically, for each new class, get there at least half an hour before class (if possible), so that you'll 1) Know where the room is, and 2) get a good seat. Although this semester I found it has the additional benefit of 3) Being able to tell the department that the room scheduled for the class is under renovation, with enough time for them to find a usable room for the class by the time it's scheduled to start. If you have classes that are back-to-back, know where the second class is beforehand.

Also, professor office hours are your friend. They have the dual purpose of 1) helping you understand material that may be unclear, and 2) Introducing yourself to the professor. Professors who know your name will be more likely to remember you, and be able to give good letters of recommendation, or depending on the professor, you could do research under them.

Also, joining professional societies in your major is a good thing... 1) looks good on your resume, and 2) great networking potential - both for friends, and for colleagues, and 3) You usually get to learn supplementary stuff that you wouldn't necessarily learn in class. Or earlier than you normally would in class (depending on the major). Networking with guest speakers is also a good idea, when possible. Oh, and you can meet upperclassmen who would be able to give you pointers for various classes/teachers.

Speaking of teachers, there also exist sites that have reviews of various professors. The two that are popular at my school are PickaProf (http://www.pickaprof.com) and Rate My Professors (http://www.ratemyprofessors.com). There are also others that exist, that can probably be found through Google. Said upperclassmen would be able to tell you which one(s) are most used at your school.

Also, I suspect you find this (http://www.talesofmu.com/) comic interesting. It is... unusual, in many respects, yet the style of writing is engaging.

(Hopefully all that was coherent. I haven't had much sleep this week, and I haven't had lunch yet today.)

[harena.livejournal.com]

Also, I suspect you find this comic interesting. It is... unusual, in many respects, yet the style of writing is engaging!

i'm reading that right now & i can confirm its engagingnesses.

. o O (and not because i relate on many levels with the protagonist.. ahnope.. i never even went to college! >.>)

[werewulf.livejournal.com]

I don't even do the half hour before thing... I make a point of finding all my classes the day before they start. Usually if they're gonna move, then there's already a sign by the door saying so.

[miriampenguin.livejournal.com]

Usually being the keyword. This semester, I arrived at my first class, on the first day of school, about 40 minutes early [I should note that I commute to campus, and I already knew the general area where the classroom was going to be (the building, the floor, which end of the floor)]. There was a sign next to the door saying that the classroom was undergoing renovation and wouldn't be available for another 2 weeks. However, there was no sign indicating where people scheduled to that room should go. So first I went to a computer and double-checked my schedule online. It still said it was that room. I went back to the room, told the other person waiting by the class this. Then I went upstairs and told the department. They asked if I checked my schedule. I said yes. So they took my information, and looked me up in the system, and said they'd get back to me and the rest of the people waiting downstairs, in a few minutes. By this point, it was probably 20 minutes until class started. At about 10 minutes until class started, a lady came down from the department and told all of us where the new room would be, and we walked there. We got there with less than 5 minutes before class was scheduled to start, at approximately the same time as the teacher.

Granted, this is my 4th year at this university, and my... 7th year in college in general (I went to a community college, previously), and this is the first time something like this happened to me. But the people in the Math department said that this wasn't the only class that this happened to that day.

[miriampenguin.livejournal.com]

Err... actually, the link is not a comic. It is a story that feels like a webcomic.

[harena.livejournal.com]

Plus, if you steal a banana, you can get people to ask if that really IS a banana in your pocket...

When W&I eat out, W almost always gets a hamburger, which almost always comes with a pickle spear, which we have taken to saving for the kids as a snack later 'cause neither of us like pickles... so i bring a snack sized bag into the restaurant & W pops in there & sticks it in his breast pocket...

...after which i ask him if he really loves me or is that pickle in his pocket ^_^

[artemisfowl2nd.livejournal.com]

I read that as "When W&I eat out, W almost always brings a hamburger..."
Which was confusing because he didn't bring a hamburger when you guys visited and why would he want to bring a hamburger to a restaurant anyways?

[harena.livejournal.com]

it was an invisible hamburger that magically appeared after he ordered one!

[bfudlmint.livejournal.com]

For those trips to the library here is a tip, keep a padlock on your bookbag. College libraries are rife with thieves. you don't want to leave your stuff alone.

[shadowcaptain.livejournal.com]

#3b: a winter coat¹ with pleated 4"x4" front pockets² can inconspicuously hold³ at least two sandwiches.<sup>4

1</sup> make sure it's actually cold out before wearing it into the cafeteria.
² make sure you take it off (or at least unbutton it) before sitting down again.
³ and wrap the sandwiches in at least two napkins apiece, especially if jelly is involved.
⁴ you do check your pockets before doing laundry, right? <-- THIS IS CRUCIAL.

[thorog.livejournal.com]

4 you do check your pockets before doing laundry, right? <-- THIS IS CRUCIAL.

I lolled.

[thorog.livejournal.com]

Katters, how much of your real name am I allowed to use in ST&J? Because the bit I'm writing very much has me being all semi-scoldy and whatthehell, and it works better if I'd use your name.

You're......writing.....some ST&J?

...

*faints*

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Not exactly. I was writing it in my head as I walked to class.

What, you didn't actually expect me to get it onto paper, did you?

~Sor

[thorog.livejournal.com]

I was...kinda hoping, yknow....

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I know.

Is four and a half pages handwritten okay? It would've been shorter, but I had to extend it enough to explain the pseudoscience Katters was using.

~Sor

[thorog.livejournal.com]

.... :D

*squee*

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

*smirks*

[artemisfowl2nd.livejournal.com]

By real name you mean my birth name? I'd prefer not at all. You can even make up a new one for me, if you'd like, but I'd prefer my birth first name to remain unknown to most people (especially now that I'm out of school and the teachers don't shout it out on the first day of class) and I'd rather my last name not floating around on the public side of the internet. Feel free to use my middle name, though.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I meant all three. Basically it's [what Amanda calls you] [your full middle name] [lastname]

I'll make something up. :D You like Gertrude, yes?

~Sor

[artemisfowl2nd.livejournal.com]

What Amanda calls me is fine. My middle name is fine. Last name's out of bounds.

Gertrude?

[thorog.livejournal.com]

She likes snarkboots

[artemisfowl2nd.livejournal.com]

It's true. Snarkboots is up there with Fiddleshanks.

#3

[drama-angel3189.livejournal.com]

I just brought some stuff from home (snacks, popcorn, cup o'soup) for the times i can't go across campus to go get foods.

[leighbug]

#4: If you have a cafeteria that stores large bags of cereal below the cereal dispensers, figure out a way to sneak a bag out. It's possible. You just have to distract the person at the entrance/exit!

#4a: If you do manage to do this, don't go around bragging about it!

#5: Have lots of fun. It's not all homework (although that is a big part). Wandering around the city is a great way to have fun. (Although I think you have that rule down perfectly.)