Going Back to School? Purge Your Stuff

One thing I've noticed about myself over the last few years is that I accumulate stuff at a speed previously only attained by light, sound, and Usain Bolt. Even over the course of a semester, I end up with all kinds of things I didn't have at the beginning of the year--everything from school supplies to computer accessories, to that three-person beer bong I'm now so attached to.

All that stuff comes home with me, and then gets schlepped back to school, where I accumulate even more stuff. And around goes the merry-go-round.

This winter, I've decided to do something that I hope you'll join me in doing: the mass purge of all the things I don't need anymore.

Here's how it works: In the process of packing my stuff to go back to school, I'm going to leave at home 50% of my stuff. That means for every shirt I take, I leave one. For every pair of shoes I take, I leave one. For every notebook I take, one stays home. You get the idea.

What this is going to do for me is make everything I have easier to find, keep the crap out of my life and let me only deal with things I want and need, and force me to be more economical with my stuff. Having extra space, fewer things to choose from, and a lot less to move in and out all the time is a pretty awesome consequence, if you ask me.

All that stuff you leave at home is of course accessible to you if you need it, which is the beauty of this process; intentionally leave too much home, and see what you really need when you get back to school. I'm betting I'll be surprised how few of the things I can hardly bear to leave home I actually end up needing, but if I do, they're only a phone call and a UPS box away.

Clutter in my life stresses me out, and keeps me from being focused or having fun because there's always a mess somewhere in my life. Let's cut the mess, eliminate useless stuff, and start the semester off right this time!

And then, of course, accumulate a lot more stuff. Which--bonus--you've now got space for.

Twitter in the Classroom - 3 Moderation Options

In June, we covered a UT teacher who got some major geek cred for using Twitter in her class. We even interviewed Professor Rankin. 

But all I kept thinking is, what happens when people start playing the penis game on Twitter? You can't expect a lot of maturity out of us college students (and I think that's a good thing). But even if you've got a totally mature class -- what happens when a vocal few control the discussion? These are just a few disadvantages of projecting hundreds of unmoderated tweets on a big screen behind a lecture or during a student's presentation. Luckily, there are a few services out there that help keep it clean and controlled. Here's a rundown: 

Paratweet

Paratweet is designed for conferences and panels but that still makes it a pretty solid option for teachers. A TA can just click "yes" or "no" next to a live stream of tweets and the good ones will be instantly published to a bold, easy-to-read display. That's full control. 

Unfortunately, Paratweet isn't free. It's $80 per month -- which isn't bad for a university. It'll just be hard to find an administrator tech-savvy enough to buy a subscription for the whole college. For $140 per month, a school could use Paratweet during up to three simultaneous classes.

Wiffiti

Plenty of college students roll their eyes at the word "Twitter". That's why Wiffiti is great. It has tons of functionality beyond just Tweets -- it'll include Flickr images and text messages as well.

It's greatest virtue in the classroom is auto-moderation, which won't require an additional hand or a TA. There are three levels: rated G, rated R and all messages. 

Twubs

Twubs is a whole start-up based around the idea of a hashtag -- so they offer a lot more in their Conference Suite than a classroom would need. But their moderation strategy is a little different, so it's worth exploring. It's more like live TV. The user can set a time-delay for live tweets that gives a short window to remove undesirable content. Since every single tweet needn't be individually approved, a lecturing professor could just keep that eye in the back of their head on the moderation screen while simultaneously lecturing.

The Twubs stuff is still in beta, which makes it free, but you'll have to contact them in advance to get it rolling. 

Hacking the Course Selection Process

Putting together a semester’s class schedule is a fairly simple task, however most times you don’t realize you’ve messed up until midway through (and usually 2 days after the course drop deadline...). Here’s 5 simple things you can do to eliminate course selection regret.

Build a university career course framework.

Depending on how helpfully your school’s advisors are, this may or may not have been done for you already. By outlining which courses you plan to take each year, you can ensure that all of your pre-requisites and compulsory classes are met as well ensuring you have time to take the electives you’re really interested in. By no means do you have to adhere to this schedule, it simply serves as roadmap to keep you on track. If you’re unsure about this, speak with your advisor, they can usually help you out. 

Enroll in extra courses each semester.

Is a course description really enough to decide if you’re going to enjoy a course or not? I suggest enrolling in an extra class or two and dropping the courses you enjoy the least after a few weeks. Most schools will give you a full refund if you drop a course before a certain date, use this to your advantage. Caution, make sure you mark this date on your calendar!

Talk to the professor. 

At some point during the first week or so of classes, speak with the professor and get an idea of his teaching philosophy, his helpfulness during office hours, and be sure to make a judgement on his generosity (in the event you need a mark boost...). Building rapport with your professors is important in university, and a quick conversation should help you decide if they have something to offer you. 

Consider the course grading format.

If you’re a real whiz on a multiple choice exam, it makes sense to exploit this fact and focus on classes with this grading format. However, you don’t want to leave university without practice in essay writing. Consider the grading scheme when selecting classes, but don’t be afraid to challenge yourself once in a while.

Don’t be afraid to take a “bird” course.

University is about balance; studying and partying, expressing and discovering, easy courses and hard courses. You’re not badass if you take a crazy course load and get sub-par marks. Bird courses are good for your sanity and will give your GPA a boost. Don’t feel guilty about taking a few. 

Questions? Feel free to leave a comment or contact me at luke@hackcollege.com

Throwback: Your Greatest Asset at College

This was originally posted in March of 2009. Hopefully you can apply this to your new classes this semester. For those in trimester schools starting today, good luck! For those of us that have a week or more left of break, let us reap the benefits of the two semester system and come back refreshed soon!

Friendliness helps in life outside of college, but it definitely has a special place inside of it. Whether you start your first semester, or coming back for a new semester; being friendly will help you in more ways than one. It's a lot easier to tell someone who you are friends with to turn the music down, at three in the morning, when you have a test at 8 a.m. the next day, rather than someone whom you have a mutual hatred with. Now, you can't be friends with everyone but you can at least try. Any conflict can be handled much easier this way. 

Outside of the dorms, friendliness can lead to better grades. If you can start making friends in you major then, it will be easier to create study groups as well as work on group projects because you'll probably be seeing the same faces again depending on the size of your school. Now, the first day of classes is definitely awks to the max but here are some tips for you to bridge starting relationships with classmates:

1. Sit next to someone you don't know... and talk to them. 

It's kind of a no-brainer but if you get to class first  chances are you'll have at least one desk or table between the next person, providing you're late.  If you are outgoing like this then you could ask if they want to study with you. When you skip a class because it was your 21st birthday, it'll help if you have friends in your class to get notes from. 

2. Take major classes together. 

The more you study with one person, the more they learn how you learn. If you take numerous classes with them then you can depend on them more and vice versa. The long hours you spend in the library might be fun because you'd be doing it with someone you enjoy spending time with. 

3. Be Dependable.

People don't like it when they're studying with soPhoto Courtesy: Flickr User bslimeone and they don't bring anything to the table. Having people to depend on when it comes to studying also means they depend on you. Put in the same amount of work as you would have if you'd been studying by yourself. 

Finally, be friendly to the people who work at the University. Chances are you'll see the same people working at the food counters, lunch trucks and coffee shops for the duration of your time there. If you're friendly to them then they'll definitely reciprocate. This goes for custodial staff as well. They do an awesome job and are usually pretty cool once you get to know them.

2009 - A HackCollege Year in Review

I'll be spending midnight in the beautiful (but rainy) city of Seattle. Awesome photo by flickr user kashyap_hc

Oh my. Where did that year go? 2009? Are you still there? Come back! No? Okay, we'll miss you.

Needless to say, 2009 was the best year yet for HackCollege. It was our third year in existence and the best one yet. Let's take a little bit of time closing out the year with a review from some of the most awesome points.

More Readers

Here's a secret to starting a Web site that I've noticed: as long as you keep writing, more people will keep reading. We've kept writing, and you guys have been sharing the site around.

And for that, we thank you guys for sticking with us for another year. We're getting to the point where we might be a second generation site; those who are visiting the site now are new to the whole college scene. It's a weird but exciting thing.

We wouldn't be here without you. You guys make the site what it is. We write stuff, but a lot of our suggestions come from reader emails and comments. We read every single one!

New Writers

We couldn't have been pumping out the content that we have been without some new writers. Toward the beginning of the year, we picked up two new writers: Mike Bertolino from West Chester University and Luke Turcotte from Waterloo University. They have both been awesome contributors over the past year. (How come their posts always get more comments than mine?)

During the summer, we also picked up David Pierce, a senior at University of Virginia. He's been great to have and is also quite prolific around the Web.

Chris and I couldn't have done it without these guys, so a big thanks to them. As David, Chris and I move away from the editorial side of HackCollege in 2010, we'll be looking for some new writers. Get those samples ready.

Bigger Partners

Throughout 2009, we've begun to work with some of pretty big named companies. This has been both trying and exciting. We're sticklers about editorial control (if you haven't noticed) and haven't "sold out" yet. It's exciting to work with bigger companies, because bigger companies usually means bigger budgets for cool things like parties. We're excited to see what 2010 will bring.

Parties

To me, the most exciting parts of 2009 for HackCollege were definitely the parties. In March, we teamed up with Radar.net to put together a party for UT Austin students before the start of SXSW. We tried doing a show (keyword: tried), and had a blast. Special thanks to Archana Ramachandran for helping us organizing that one.

We also worked with HP to throw an awesome party in Los Angeles in June. We gave away a dv2. We had a huge bar tab. We had an awesome DJ. We brought out a ton of people and had an amazing time. There was also dancing.

Now is a good time to give yet another shout out to these two awesome sponsors. We could not have done these parties without them. They are awesome people. Support us by supporting them. Thanks again to Radar.net and HP.

Student Bloggers and Discuss Campus

Towards October, Alex Bea from StudentBloggers.org came to us with saying he was moving on to bigger and better things. HackCollege and a few others have assumed the responsibilities of the site. We've changed things around a little bit and are no longer posting weekly student blogging round ups. We are using it as a way to band together some of the best college blogs out there to argue for what we really want in sponsorships. So when you see the same awesome companies next year sponsoring your favorite college sites, you'll know why.

We also launched a new site called Discuss Campus. It's been a great success. It allows anyone to ask or answer college-related questions. We've already got a lively community over there and are looking forward to watching it grow. And I swear I will have the highest reputation.

Making a Name for Ourselves

One of the weirdest things that has been happening more and more is that we're slowly making a name for ourselves. No longer do we hide this blogging thing that we do. Hell, I've started bringing it up at parties. (The ladies aren't exactly swooning, but I'm working on my pitch.) More and more, people have started responding with, "Oh yeah, I know that site!" whenever we mention it. Some people have even recognized us in public for our work on the site. Weird. 

What were some of your favorite 2009 HackCollege moments? Leave us a comment!

Christmas in Two Infographics

Since we're in an infographic mood here at HackCollege (and since I've had nothing but free time for the last few days--family vacation...), I went hunting for some fun, Christmas-y infographics.

The Christmas season, as it turns out, is full of incredible and odd information and statistics: Oregon sells 6 million Christmas trees every year?!?!? Fake trees are WAY more expensive than the real ones??!?! Weird, people.

So, in the spirit of sharing, here are two awesome infographics that sum up pretty perfectly the Christmas season (click the image to enlarge them):

The Christmas Season: By the Numbers

Our Present Economy

 Lots of fun facts, no? What's your favorite cool thing about Christmas? And, if you find an infographic about Santa's Christmas Eve trip, which I know exists but is eluding me, post the link here! It's hilarious.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

College Partying and Tuition in America Infographic

Check out this infographic that Kelly found on a Fast Company blog. It makes the ole "college is a waste of money case." Take it with a grain of salt -- some flashy graphic design doesn't mean it makes a good point. 

Never let anyone tell you that college is too expensive. Especially with student loan interest rates so low, college is the single greatest investment you will ever make in your whole life. Over the course of your career, it'll pay you back 100-fold -- that's what I call a lifehack. Comparing starting salaries and partying habits doesn't change that. 

And take note of the negative tone for spending 9 hours a day "engaged with media and technology." We like to think that using your cell phone and a few social networks is a good thing -- it might even be your homework. 

Click to see the whole thing.

Click to read more ...

LG eXpo Phone Review

I was able to get my hands on the new LG eXpo, which has some pretty humorous commercials floating around the 'Net. It's biggest selling point is the "Pico Projector" that you can buy for it.

That's right: it's the first phone in existence that has a projector you can attach to it. Why would anyone need a tiny projector that projects a screen smaller than 4 feet? I don't know. If you find out, please tell me.

On the whole, I found the phone to be generally unusable due to the lousy touch screen on the thing. The keyboard is decent, but even the phone's fast processor is not fast enough to keep up with the sluggish Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.

I recommend using you Christmas money to get something better, like an iPhone 3GS or a Verizon Droid.