This Week: HackCollege Xmas Lists

This looks like a painfully normal Christmas. Photo by flickr user ImNotQuiteJack.

As much as we hate to say it sometimes, the finals Christmas season is upon us. We are all racing toward the finish line for this quarter/semester. Christmas trees are going up around campus and I'm already tired of holiday jingles.

And we're just old enough to still have Christmas lists and not feel guilty about it. So throughout the week, each HackCollege writer will be sharing the top things on their Christmas list. We aren't including any socks or underwear on our lists; those are implied.

So stay tuned throughout the week to see what each writer is hoping for for Christmas.

Wondering what to get someone for Christmas? Get them a HackCollege sweatshirt!

How to Avoid Partying, Get Good Grades

Partying is no good. Let me repeat that: NO GOOD. All that matters in college is getting good grades your parents can be proud of showing that Sigma Cum-Laude diploma off to their friends. The good grades will also ensure your future at grad schools and give you the grit you need to make it in the real world. Well, at least that's what my dad told me. Now here are some tips to stay away from the alchies on your campus. 

Read. ALL THE TIME

I don't know if you've heard, but reading is FUNdamental.  The most important thing is to read every world in all of your textbooks while simultaneously outlining them. After you have finished this you'll have surely missed the missed out on your friends patronage of some frat house. Who needs that?

Now the real fun begins. Start reading some novels. I suggest you stay up-to-date with what's hot right now. Read each of the Twilight books five times, at least. War and Peace should take up a good chunk of time between when you friends leave to party and when classes start again on Monday. 

Keep Communicating with Your Profs.

It's always good to get to know your professors.  Lets take that a step further. See what they're up to on Friday nights or do they watch NFL pregame shows or Meet the Press on Sundays. Having done this before, it could go one of two ways. You could either land on a research team, or land a restraining order. Hey, you're getting something either way. 

Mocktails are the Best-tails

Because Sober-Steves like us are so few and far between we might have to blend in. The mocktail will help us to do just that. When your friends are pregaming, head into the other room and mixup a few mocktails. You'll not only look cultured for the ladies, you won't be disobeying the law or your parents either. This plan tended to fail me when I went into the other room and actually had the drinks with a young lady. 

Anyway I hope this guide to alcohol free living will help you ace college and make your parents proud. I know mine are. They don't know about the restraining order yet though. I was going to break it to them after I graduated top in my class with a 4.0 GPA and what the bigger success is, never having an once of alcohol slip into mouth in all four years at this institution. 

How do you stay away from the devil known as alcohol? Comment below to share!

Make Your Bed Every Morning

Because you read a lifehacking blog like HackCollege you obviously already make your bed every day. Right? Because all students make their bed each morning. Because students never take naps. Because students always get a full night's rest. And nobody has a pain-in-the-ass loft bed.

So maybe that's not all true. But I think I can convince you othewise on that whole bed-making issue. I can't help you with that loft bed though. Those are a bitch.

Why should I make my bed EVERY F'IN MORNING?

Let me have just a four-bullet-point-chance at telling you:

• You can impress your family (and the opposite sex): Nobody in college makes their bed. Making this 30-second habit a part of your morning routine will -- for some strange social reason -- impress people.
• It ties the room together: Let's face it -- your itty-bitty dorm room is about 98% bed. You have about enough room to walk in, and have a bed. That's it. So, by making your bed, you're effectively tidying a large majority of your room with minimal effort.
• Workspace: You have permission to use your bed as a workspace only if it's made. Otherwise, that's gross. (Who wants coffee grinds and Ramen flavoring INSIDE THEIR BED? Not me.)
• Instant wake-up call: If you can convince yourself to make your bed right when you get out -- I think you'll be hard-pressed to press snooze. It's a great way to routine-ize the moments after your alarm rings, hence disengaging that early-morning fog-of-mind.

So, hopefully one of those bullets, like the bullet from a revolver, convinced you to change your life a bit.

How to kick in this new habit

It will take you 60 seconds to make your bed. Especially after you practice it every day! Practice makes perfect! Perfect bedding!

Since it only takes that single minute -- all you have to do is find a window. I promise you, there is a window in your daily routine. A window you should close with bed-making. Here are some ideas:

• While your phone or computer boots up
• While your coffemaker is running
• While you're waiting for your shower to warm up
• While you swish around your mouthwash
• While YOUR ROOMMATE FEEDS HIS SNAKE IN THE GODDAMN CLOSET EVERY MORNING

I don't know. You can find a few minutes if you put your mind to it. You're in college.

Crazy lifehack option no. 2

Save 2 minutes every day by not making your bed.

In the comments -- tell us if you make your bed! We won't tell mom. Cross my heart.

How to Refuse Money from Your Parents

Dolla dolla bills. Photo by flickr user borman818.

There comes that dark day every so often where a parent may casually ask during the weekly phone check-up, "Do you need money?" Usually it will be from a father. It's his way of saying, "You're doing well, son. Let me offer part of my paycheck to you rather than choking up on the phone." But like the good college student that you are, you need to always be on the defense. See, the best students (us) work 40 hours per week while attending class and volunteering while maintaining a relationship with a member of the opposite gender, but nothing too serious yet.

So how do you refuse money from your parents? We've got it down to a few-step process.

Avoid the topic if at all possible

Usually the topic of money will inevitably get brought up toward the end of a phone conversation. Your parents are smart people and realize that you probably need money. But you don't.

The best way to avoid the topic is to always have an "out" at the end of the conversation. Schedule something to begin immediately at the end of the weekly phone call of something you'll need to run off to. Once the question gets brought up, you can just say, "Gotta go. Love you! Bye!" 

Speak slowly and firmly

If the first method doesn't work, you will need to be frank with them. I recommend practicing in front of a mirror. Try the phrase

I'm sorry Mother and Father, but I do not require your monetary assistance at this time. If the event occurs in the future where I may require some funds, I will let you know in a neatly hand-written letter.

I've used that phrase several times before. It's bullet-proof.

Make the money yourself 

The best way to never have to refuse money from your parents is to make the money yourself. We've got several posts that can help you do this, like Creating Passive Income Online as a Student. Give that a read and you'll never have an empty wallet.

Looking for a Christmas present to spend all of your money on? May we recommend the HackCollege Sweatshirts? Or forward the link to one of our helper pages onto your parents!

This week is Goodie Two-Shoes Week on HackCollege

It's crunch time. Finals are fast approaching. So is Thanksgiving break. There is so much work to get done before hopping on the plane on Wednesday morning for a day of hellish travel. We are asking ourselves: will I get everything done in time? Will I pass all of my classes? Is it possible for a human skull to explode from pure stress?

To take your mind off of it, HackCollege brings you Goodie Two-Shoes week. This short feature will cover the things that you are forgetting to do because you are so incredibly stressed out. Like how to make your bed in the morning, or how to refuse money from your parents. These are the things that the impeccable and ne'er-do-bad readers of HackCollege can do in their sleep. But your parents might be reading this week, so we need to remind them that you are an amazing, talented student. Why might my parents be reading this week? you ask. It's because we have new sweatshirts on sale.

As evidenced by our sidebar, we've got some new sweatshirts we're selling. They are in the spirit of John Belushi's iconic sweater worn in Animal House and found in poster form in dorm rooms around the planet. You want one, don't you? 

But we know how stressed you are, so that's why we've made special pages for you to forward onto your parents. These pages give your parents a subtle suggestion for a Christmas present, i.e. a HackCollege sweatshirt. We've designed these pages to make you look good, so there's no harm in forwarding it along when you get the unanswerable question, "What do you want for Christmas this year?" We have the answer:

HackCollege Sweatshirt Parents Page - His

HackCollege Sweatshirt Parents Page - Hers

If you would like to check out other pictures of the sweatshirts and get more info on them for yourself, we've got a page for that, too: HackCollege Sweatshirts.

Be on the lookout for Goodie Two-Shoes Week posts all this week. And have a good Turkey Day! 

UC Tuition Hike, UC Students Strike

The UC system decided to officially raise tuition by an unheard of 32% on Friday. In the face of the easily-anticipated hike, THOUSANDS of students at UCLA, Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz (among others) tried to hack the decree the only way they could: protests. Sit-ins and a laughable (but kind of ominous and still respectable) "Shame on you" chant dominated the efforts.

UC Santa Cruz protests just ended today -- three days later. Rock on!

The decision doesn't touch the actual tuition per se -- it instead raises the fees around tuition. It's a grave reminder that even while public school tuition is state-regulated, administrators can slap on fees that make the colleges as expensive as private schools.

It'll cost about $2,500 more to attend a California public school. Ouch. Like, major ouch.

[awesome image above stolen from the NYT]

This Week's Best Questions on Discuss Campus - Nov. 19, 2009

What's your question? Photo by flickr user Margaret Anne Clarke

It's been a busy week for the HackCollege crew. We all met up on Tuesday in New York City for the live taping of the Diggnation. It was the first time that either I or @lesinski had met Mike Bertolino, our writer from West Chester University, in the flesh. We had a blast!

Needless to say, Discuss Campus hasn't even begun to slow down. Here are this week's hottest questions:

What are some Must-Have programs for your computer during college?

What are some really useful programs and/or unique program uses you would recommend for a college student to have on his desktop/laptop to perform better in college?

Is it a good idea to enroll into a once-a-week, 3 hour class?

The advantage of enrolling into a once-a-week course is having one long and efficient class session. However, what are the disadvantages?

How can I catch up and get at the same level of intoxication as my friends when arriving late at a party?

I often show up at parties when I finish work. This means everyone else is way more drunk than me and it's difficult to catch up to their level! What is the best way to get drunk quick (thats quite safe?)

Find Your College on Twitter

It seems these days that everyone’s jumping with both feet onto the Twitter bandwagon – and that includes colleges. Employees, departments, school teams, and even college presidents are getting onto Twitter, and engaging with students and the public in cool new ways.

One of the best ways to see how colleges are using Twitter is GlobalQuad, a site tracking the tweets and twitters of some of the best colleges around the United States. A lot of schools now have Twitter accounts for things like alerts and news, as well as reporting sports scores and the like.

But some schools are using Twitter in even more awesome ways. For instance, the University of Virginia (where I’m a senior) has accounts for announcing various things happening around campus, tracking our sports teams, giving career advice, and even an account for the school newspaper.

GlobalQuad tracks them all, and puts them into a single feed that acts as a University-wide news feed, that you can either follow on GlobalQuad or Twitter. And UVA’s not the only school – there are a rapidly-growing number of universities and colleges that are using Twitter (and you can even add your own, if it’s not already on GlobalQuad).

Twitter’s undoubtedly the fastest way to get news and information that matters to YOU, and when we’re in college, knowing what’s going on, what there is to do, and when your team wins a soccer game is pretty awesome.

What else are colleges doing on Twitter? What do you wish yours would do?