Ways to Stay Fit While Living on Campus

The infamous “Freshman 15” is not an enigma; it is alive and well at college campuses everywhere each year. No one, female or male, looks forward to gaining such a significant amount of weight in the span of one school year. Luckily, there are many ways that you can combat the Freshman 15 and maintain your ideal weight while in college.

#1: Walk, walk, walk! For almost all small to medium sized colleges and universities, it is very feasible (if not expected) to walk to all your classes. If you’re a freshman, there is almost a 100% chance that you’re going to be living on campus, so walking to classes shouldn’t be a big deal. Rather than drive your car the short distance to where your class is on campus, walk! Kickstart your day with some casual exercise by going out of your way to burn a few calories. Now, for people who go to school at huge universities, this is not as feasible of an option when you may have to catch a bus outside of your residence hall to go to class. While that might be unavoidable, you can still ditch the bus between classes and walk everywhere until it’s time to come back across campus up to your dorm at the end of the day.

#2: Portion control! Some students go into culture shock when they arrive at campus and can essentially have all-you-can-eat food in the dining hall at virtually any time of day. Remember: portion control! Just because your mom isn’t there to tell you that you shouldn’t eat thirds doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t remember yourself. Ditch all the extra servings and make high-calorie and high-fat foods like ice cream, cakes, and fried options for special days like weekends or after receiving a great grade on an exam or paper. That way, your calorie splurges are more of a rarity and reward as opposed to a not-so-good norm.

#3: Treat going to the gym as if it’s a class! By that, no, I didn’t mean make gym workouts boring or dull. Instead, I mean that you should treat the gym with the same level of importance and commitment that you (hopefully) treat your schoolwork with. If you tell yourself that you have to go to the gym between Chemistry and Accounting, you will! And you’ll feel a lot better once you do.

It can be easy to gain weight when you’re in college. You have a lot of stressors, both negative and positive, which can cause you to indulge in poor eating habits. In addition, being homesick can evoke the same (over-eating, under-exercising) response from some college students. However, no matter how funny the “Freshman 15” jokes may be, making sure that you treat your body as well as you always have despite the craziness of acclimating yourself to college is of the utmost of importance.

What to do when a college course becomes too hard!

Sometimes the adjustment from a high school workload to a college workload can be tough. While your initial reaction to a course that is a little too challenging may be to drop the class, there are three vital resources to seek out before making that drastic decision and putting yourself behind on credits.

Seek out the help of a classmate: There is sure to be a classmate or an acquaintance to someone in your circle of friends that excels at the very coursework you are struggling with. Finding a peer to tutor you can be a great resource. It typically is not as intimidating to learn form someone one-on-one that is the same age as you, and usually they’re flexible about tutoring. While with a Teacher’s Assistant or Professor you may have to schedule tutoring times within their requirements, a fellow college student is more likely to have an open window of tutoring options. For example, you can get tutored at 10pm if that's when you work best! While some students may charge a nominal tutoring fee, many students will tutor you in exchange for some of their favorite take-out or even for free sometimes! After all, the best way to learn is by teaching someone else, so they're already gaining something by tutoring you!

Talk to your TA: If you cannot find a college student to tutor you or simply believe you need more help and attention than a peer can give you, talking to your course’s TA is your next best route. Depending on how large your college or university is, your TA may play a small role in the daily tasks of your course or a very large role in the case where they teach the course almost solely by themselves. Either way, your TA is a valuable source of insight and knowledge about the course and how you can succeed as the semester progresses. Plus, it's great to have a TA on your side. Oftentimes they'll moderate class discussion or different aspects of the course, and it's great to have your TA on your side and not out to get you!

Pipe Up to Your Professor: In some cases, there is nothing left to do but go to your professor after class or during their office hours and let them know that you need help. Your professor will appreciate your humility in approaching them for help and will aid you as best as they can in helping you learn the material to successfully prepare for exams. Knowing that you’re being proactive about their course also gets you some brownie points; although you may not be a star student grade-wise, they know that you are invested in the coursework and passionate about succeeding.

Never wait too long before seeking out help for a tough class. It’s best to start looking for course help as soon as you start to struggle and/or get a mediocre grade. In many cases, you may not need continuous help throughout the semester, but instead help here and there for course topics that don’t "click" right away with you. Just because you’re in college doesn’t mean that the kinds of academic confidants from grade school and high school have abandoned you. On the contrary, they’re waiting for you to seek their help.

College Students All Wired Up

College students face high academic pressures set upon themselves by their professors. As a college student, you’ll have many late nights spent finishing those all-important essays. The feeling of accomplishment comes right after you are done, you click save and head off to class. But what would happen if you came back one day to resume page 12 of 15 in your research project, only to find your computer crashed or you forgot to save it? If you don’t know right away, then this blog is a must read!

The staple of college students nowadays is the portable jump drive. These small memory sticks are a life saver for students and allow them to carry countless essays and presentations to class or the library. Having one of these is a college life necessity. But flash drives are not meant to hold all your computers vital information, for that you should look into getting yourself an external hard drive. These backup memory drives are much larger in size, easily hitting 500 GB of storage capacity. You can store music, school work, movies and everything you can’t afford to lose in a compact design. New models can even mirror their backup, allowing you a third layer of protection. Backing up your important files is becoming more important in this digital age.

Newer computers may even include their own online computer memory backup. This is an all-digital solution with no cables to hook up. However, this service does require a constant internet hookup to be effective and usually has a cost associated with it.

One wise teacher told me to always have a backup plan for your presentations. Case and point, it was my time to present a research project I had compiled to the class. I got to the class room with my jump drive in hand. I was preparing for the presentation before class and noticed that the USB slot was not working on the computer. There I was set to present, bullets of sweat would have been running if it had not been for my teacher’s advice. So I booted up my e-mail and loaded the presentation all the way to an A+.

Electronic backup is a must for college students nowadays. Your parents had typewriters that produced physical copies, which were impossible to lose electronically. But with the blessings of technology, you have to prepare for some of its downfalls. Put these college computer dorm essentials on your supply list this summer and be prepared.

Stay Classy:

The Ideal Roommate – Be All You Can Be & Better!

Whether you choose to dorm with your best friend or are assigned at random, learning to live with another person is something you must do while at college. You will have disagreements, arguments and even compromising. From these experiences, you’ll grow and mature. But there are a few ideas and neat products that will lessen the “Collegural” shock. You may have read one of my previous blogs about Douchitis on April 4th. The act of being a jerky roommate is a prime root of many college conflicts. Fortunately for everyone, it’s very easy to avoid. I will share some things I learned, so you can learn through me, rather that firsthand.

No one goes to bed at the same time and that’s a fact. So the moment one roommate decides to hit the sack, the other roommate (which may be you) has two options. You can be “that student” and leave all the lights on to read. Secondly you might try and finagle some apparatus with your light bulb to read. I’ve learned that a clip on bed light or flex LED light is the most convenient solution. These little buggers give you plenty of light that is positional and movable, allowing you and your roommate more sleeping privacy.

Fact, college students live off of snack foods and pre-packaged goodies. A fashionable trash bin will keep all this clutter in one place where it belongs. As the semester progresses, mounds of papers and your cookies from Aunt Cindy will accumulate. Having somewhere to put all this junk will instantly spruce up both your areas. Your roommate might not say it, but he/she will appreciate having a cleaner dorm.

Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica & College Storage Organizers!!! Whether you choose closet, underbed or behind the door, storing all your dorm stuff is a college necessity. Without these clever storage ideas, keeping your room clean would be a much more difficult task with your shoes, notebooks and clutter taking over. Nobody likes a slobby dorm room. Avoiding this messy room in the first place will go a long way for preventing arguments and to help you to not forget that critical exam paper.

Your time dorming will be some memories that you always take with you. Let them be the right kind, both fun and challenging. You can avoid many of the common hiccups for new college students by paying a little diligence and getting a few dorm essentials. You can find these useful college accessories at great website like www.dormco.com


Until the next time: