So I guess for you kids this is 'Back to school' time. As a man who has done more than his fair share of time at college, I want to use this opportunity to make a few suggestions to help y'all out. I may do more than one post as time or ideas dictate.

1. Go to bed early. This is something that I could never do myself, but in many ways it is key to getting done a lot at school and in life. First of all, many of those 7AM labs aren't so bad if you can get several hours of sleep and a decent breakfast right before. It is a good habit that will help you your entire life? Why would an extreme night owl like myself say that? It is because everybody else works during the day. At school, classes, stores, food places, the Bursar's Office, the student body, etc. are all functioning during the daylight hours. If you need to get anything done, the day is when you actually have a chance unless it is a completely lone adventure. It will also help you when you graduate as most of the more professional, higher paying jobs are from 8:30AM-5PM.

2. Get out of the dorm room. Use your room as a place to sleep and to keep your things as well as a place to occasionally study. The dorm room is a distraction to getting things done because people blast their stereos, walk into your room looking to play your PS3, have bad lighting, are close to your DVD collection, etc. A good way to handle living in the dorms is by doing your best to eat meals with your hallmates and attend your resident hall counser’s (RA’s) programs to strengthen hall unity and let the natural friendships build. Otherwise, you might forget that you are actually here to get a degree as well and get stuck having too many late night philosophical discussions to the point that your grades suffer. It is usually a good idea instead to spend more time around your fellow classmates in the academic buildings of your major so that you can discuss the lectures, homework, have access to pertinent libraries, professors, etc. It is also good to do homework, especially less critical homework, at some social places like the student union, or coffee house so that you can have natural breaks to socialize. You need to be careful not to take too many breaks nor spend too much money though.

3. Attend all your classes and do most if not all your homework. Why do I say attend ‘all’ your classes? Because classes are valuable in ways you may not yet realize. The main lectures are taught by professors that essentially are experts in their fields. That is valuable both financially and intellectually. The review sessions, are usually handled by teaching assistants, who are strong in their field, have easy access to the professors to get clarification should your questions stump them this session, and are far more helpful in actually getting an interested student to successfully learn then most people give them credit. Also attending classes and TA help sessions (and definitely not attending them) get you noticed by people who you may someday be looking to as a reference for an advanced degree (like a masters or PhD) or a job reference for the work force. It may also mean the difference between giving you the benefit of the doubt on a borderline grade if you are perceived by others as a serious student. Most importantly, you will begin to know yourself that you are a serious student. One final thing is that many courses take attendance and are rigidly structured so that you can actually lose whole letter grades on your final overall grade simply by missing classes.

Why do I say ‘most if not all your homework’? Well because the more homework you do, the better you get in a given field. It is just that simple. The problem is that many professors consider it your responsibility to balance your life so they may collectively give out more homework than you can realistically handle. If homework is going to be counted for a grade, this is your priority, not only because it is going to be counted but also because this is usually the most important subject matter to learn both for quizzes and exams, as well as for a general understanding of the field. Some homework may not be counted. You should still try to do this work, especially if it is related to your major, but sometimes doing all this optional work can have a negative impact on your grades if you can’t stay focused, on your social life if you have no time to ever doing anything but homework, and on your happiness if you feel overwhelmed. The key is to be responsible when deciding what homework to make a priority.

4. Ask her out. I’m sure you’ll come up with a number of reasons not to so I’ll come up with a number of reasons why:

-Because you want to. Period.
-Because it will give you confidence, even if she says no so long as you don’t give up in general with this approach.
-Because she may be waiting for you to.
-Because you may regret the missed opportunities.
-Because she may end up being a good friend instead. As an added benefit, this might lead her to introducing you to someone or giving you a chance to visit her at the girls’ dorm for dinner.
-Because it may help her self-confidence to know you find her attractive. She may be in love with her boyfriend of two years, or she simply may still be uncomfortable dating, so she may say, “noâ€

I thought the first three were obvious. Or maybe it's just the ones that I learned the most by experience.
But I agree with them in general.

i doubt even you were as boring in college as you make college students sound bo.

doesn't anyone go to university in the usa? o.O?

I'm a PUA in training... girls shouldn't be too much a of problem.

I don't know what you mean by the question. I'm using 'college' and 'university' interchangeably, if that is what you are talking about even though technically a university is a combination of colleges. Either way the advice is still basically the same.

As for the boring part, my point, in a way, is that the 'cool' thing to do is not to just try and be 'cool' and not care. Everybody's college experience is different. Some never do anything but study, others never do anything but party, but my points are an attempt to get people to actively think more about their choices because I think in college that too many people just go with the flow and this can cause you often times to miss out on a lot of fun times as well as get poor grades and less of an education than what you are actually paying for.

EDIT: I would assume that some of these things may be obvious because especially when I read them they sound so familiar that I wonder if I might subconciously remember some of these things from tip lists others created or simply being intuitive. The reason that I am putting this out there is because to many students, the obvious never really 'hits' them but remains elusively obvious enough to ignore.

Also for clarification, the reason that new editions of textbooks are excessivly created is so that the publishers can freqently charge new prices for books instead of having year after year of used books available. When the edition changes are not significant, all this does is give student money to greedy publishers (especially) and authors.

Ok, so I realized that I was subconsciously targeting this list toward the average guy (at least the average straight guy) when I said, “Ask her outâ€

You don't have to be politically correct about the dating thing. Political correctness is where our country f*cks up.

What is 'politically correct' about what I said?

[quote]Ok, so I realized that I was subconsciously targeting this list toward the average guy (at least the average straight guy) when I said, “Ask her outâ€

Yeah, but, we're dealing with people who need to have big warnings that say "FOOD/DRINK WILL BE HOT" on coffee cups and microwave dinners.

mirite?

[quote="ShadowFox1001"][quote]Ok, so I realized that I was subconsciously targeting this list toward the average guy (at least the average straight guy) when I said, “Ask her outâ€

The world isn't so traditional anymore, old man.

Good.

So how has it been? Are you guys starting the new school year on the right foot?

Besides Women's Studies, I'm doing alright.

Anybody have their first exams this Monday? Are you going to study or party this weekend?

I had my first exam a few weeks ago, but I had two yesterday and I did well on both of them. I haven't got my Psychology grade back yet, but I'm guessing a B-A. Not sure.