sample college application essays

Going to college is often associated with the fun of going to a college dorm for the entire time that you spend as a college student. Why is going to a college dorm supposed to be fun? That’s because, once and for all, you’ll be getting that dose of independence that you long desired to have when you were younger. However, you know that with this independence comes the responsibility of managing your time and your expenses, not to mention your laundry and cleaning the place. But nothing beats that one other frill that comes along with going to a college dorm–that of having dorm mates.

Dorm mates are cool because they have the potential to become good friends and study partners. But the catch is, having dorm mates that have irritating habits, who steal, or who don’t have good attitudes. How to survive? Here are some tips on how to get along with your college dorm mates and about dorm life in general:

* Establish spatial boundaries and respect them. Sometimes, petty fights with dorm mates happen when one dorm mate intrudes the other’s personal space, in matters of physical space in the dorm as well as emotional space. Every person is entitled to his or her own privacy. Be sure you know how to deal with that.

* Avoid having your things in the dorm lost by securing them. Make use of closets, drawers, or chests that have locks. Also, avoid going out of the dorm without securing your things and knowing where everything is located.

* Bond with your dorm mates whenever possible. Seek to know them more. Go out with them whenever possible. Sometimes, bonding may be just as simple as a game of chess or a movie marathon in the dorm room. Make your dorm mates feel that they have and they deserve your company.

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If you think loans are just for people who already have jobs, you ought to think twice. There is actually a loan package that is exclusively for students, otherwise known as student loans or college loans.

Question: what are college loans for? The most common reason why people, specifically college students, apply for college loans is to foot expenses for tuition as well as bills in the college dorm room.

Types of college loans

Some of the types of college loans are private college student loans, graduation loans, or Stafford loans. Each is defined as follows:

* Private college loans - These cover the total cost of your college fees, which include your tuition, dorm room expenses, and allowances.
* Stafford college loans - These loans are also referred to as federal Stafford college loans. These loans can be secured by the government and have the lowest interest rates among the college loan packages.
* Graduation loans - These refer to either loans that are intended to answer for your graduation expenses, or loans that are payable upon graduation.

Depending on the terms in the college loan agreement, a college loan can be issued to the college for tuition purposes, or in the form of a check to be given to the student. Because college loans are availed of by college students who do not really have an established source of income yet, college loan issuers give extra leeway for student borrowers in terms of lower interest rates or after-graduation grace periods.

To pay off college loans on his or her own, a student borrower has two options: to consolidate all his or her college loans (if the student applied for more than one, or he or she could consolidate with other bills his or her family might have), or to simply work out the after graduation repayment term. The student could also pay off the loan by means of a credit card account.

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Coursework, fights with your dorm roommate or lover, and still more coursework. These are problems that often plague college students. But if there’s something that really bothers college students the most, it is time management.

Time management is the act or system employed by a person to make sure that the 24 hours he or she has in a day is well spent. It is also the act of “squeezing in” all the duties and responsibilities as well as leisure time into your schedule. In other words, time management is the act of coming up with a schedule, or a plan as to what you need to do and when you are going to do them.

This is the dilemma of most college students: sometimes, it seems like 24 hours in a day are not enough for them to fulfill all the duties they need to fulfill in college. They complain of no longer being able to spend free time in leisure, because their free time is almost always spent now in doing backlog work. But actually, if you know how to manage your time effectively, you’ll find that 24 hours a day is enough for you to do all your coursework, have some leisure time, and yes, go to sleep. How to? Here are some tips:

* Get a planner, or at least a calendar that has wide spaces for each date. List all the things you need to do on a particular date. If you have a clear-cut view of the things that you need to fulfill and when, there won’t be any problem managing deadlines and getting to planned activities.

* Focus. Concentrate. If this time is supposed to be study time, then it should solely be study time. And, stick to your time allotment. When your schedule says you need to go to bed by 9 o’clock, start preparing for bed at least 15 minutes prior to the alloted time.

* If possible, multi-task. While waiting for the laundry, you can study for the big exam slated tomorrow. While you’re surfing the Internet for stuff you can buy on eBay, use this as an opportunity to do research work or autopay your bills as well.

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Students can be teachers, too… apprentices, at least. Now, if you are a college student and you have this knack for sharing your knowledge to your fellow students, specifically the lower classmen, then you have the option to try out for college teaching assistant positions. As the job name connotes, teaching assistants are basically assistants to teachers. They provide the needed manpower support and substitution for teachers. The qualification? Usually, you just have to be an active college student to qualify as a college teaching assistant.

The job description

What do college teaching assistants do? The following lists the job duties and responsibilities of a college teaching assistant:

* Teaching assistants do the paperwork for the teachers. They are the ones who typeset the exams, the handouts, and all the other documents that a teacher is required to shell out to the students or to the school authorities. They do the correspondence and have the important ones signed. Sometimes, teachers even make their teaching assistants draft out their lesson plans or examinations.

* Teaching assistants may also be tasked to keep the teachers’ important documents, such as their students’ papers and their class records. They may also be tasked to do multimedia presentations when needed. If the teacher has a website or at least an e-mail account that he or she uses to communicate with his or her students, the one who usually tends to that is his or her teaching assistant.

* If the teachers in which teaching assistants are employed under are distance educators, chances are, there would be times that the teaching assistants will be the ones who deliver and compose the lectures on the web portal provided for this purpose. Teaching assistants also tend to the teachers’ databases and keep these organized.

* Teaching assistants may be tasked to act as substitute teachers when the teacher is not around.

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There are many reasons why some college students choose to shift majors, some of which are as follows:

* No longer contented with what their current major is giving them. This is usually the problem of those students who were just coerced by parents to take a particular college major, or who were forced to take up another major when they already have another in mind.
* Discovering that their skill sets actually match another course major.
* Need to transfer to another college. Sometimes, the college that they have to transfer to does not have the same course offering as their old college. So, these students are forced to take up another course major that is still in line with their previous major.

Now, here’s the question: what does shifting majors entail? Does it have a substantial effect on the college student involved? Following are the pros and cons of shifting majors:

When shifting majors can be an advantage

The pros in shifting majors is actually more personal than practical in nature. Many college students transfer because of the aforementioned reasons, especially the two first ones, which, if you would notice, have more to do with personal choice. While that may be deemed by others, especially the conventionalists, as a waste of time, truth is, if you still decide to push through with a major that you don’t like, you’d waste time even more. That’s because pushing through something you didn’t really like may pave the way towards delinquent behavior that may result in you abandoning your study habits to pursue what you really want. Or, if by chance you do graduate from the major, you may end up in a different career, anyway. So, it’s like you just pursued the major to have a degree.

When Shifting Majors Can Be A Disadvantage

On the other hand, the cons of shifting majors is based on practicality issues. You need to consider the fact that once you start on a major, you have and are already investing time, money, and effort on it. Also, when you shift majors, if you were lucky, none of your previous course subjects may be credited and you’ll have to start back to square one.

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Sometimes, it is inevitable for college students to transfer colleges or universities due to a myriad of reasons. The most common reasons why college students transfer are as follows:

* Homesickness
* Issues with college authorities
* Dissatisfied with the course program taken
* Need to change schedule or location

Whichever your case is, there are things that you need to consider when you transfer to another college or university. Here are tips to help you go about transferring colleges or universities:

* First off, decide which college or university you are going to transfer to. You don’t want to be given an honorable dismissal certification from the school and after that, be left empty-handed, with no school to go to. Also, when you zero in your college or University of choice before you actually seek honorable dismissal from your current college, you get to save on time, money, and effort. That’s because you get to hit two birds with one stone when you seek a college to transfer to first–as you fix your documents for dismissal, you also get to fix your recommendation papers to your next college.

* In connection to the first tip, it is also most advisable that you settle your issues first with your previous college before you seek transfer to another college. These issues may include projects that you failed to submit, or fees that you haven’t paid yet. That is because such issues might serve as impediments to your quest for enrollment to another college.

* Once you have fixed your papers, you need to be reminded that you are in the process of starting all over again. This means that you have to deal with college application requirements again, such as GPA, college admissions essays, and more, since you are a transferee. To help you out with your admission essay, read sample college application essays online. There are many sites that offer sample college application essays that you can use as guides. Just make sure that you don’t copy off ideas from sample college application essays when you write your own.

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Fraternities are a mainstay in many colleges. These are college organizations that are founded based on brotherhood. Basically, fraternities help support their members in dealing with many college life issues and even life after college. If you want to know more about college fraternities, Hollywood college frat movies may offer a more personal perspective as to what a fraternity really is. While some movies may discuss serious college life issues, others show the more hilarious side of being in college. Here are the top five college frat movie picks:

* Fraternity Row – This is another 70’s movie that shows how fraternity initiation rites can lead to death. This is one of the the more serious frat movies that’s set in the 50’s. The story centers on upper class college students who have to deal with family pressure and fraternity issues.

*Animal House – This 1978 movie is dubbed as “The Godfather” version of college movies. It is one of the oldest college frat movies that features Tim Matheson, John Belushi, and John Vernon as the film’s lead characters. Animal House is about three Delta House fraternity members who did their best to stop the college dean and another fraternity from kicking the members of the fraternity out of school.

* Revenge of the Nerds – This movie dates back to the mid-80’s. It is a chart-topping Hollywood college frat movie that made history on its own. This is basically about a group of nerds in college that finally won over the college frat boys by learning how to defend themselves.

*Going Greek – This 2001 movie stars Laura Harris, Simon Rex, and Dylan Bruno. This is about how joining a fraternity can actually affect personal relationships.

* Old School - This 2003 comedy flick is about 30-year old men who rekindled the fraternity fever by forming their own. With Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Vince Vaughn as among the lead characters, the movie also features the sometimes crazy frat life.

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Politics is actually a part of everyday life. With the existence of governing bodies, rules have to be followed to ensure order. But you don’t only get involved with politics when discussing important social issues or exercising your right to vote, politics may also exist in the classroom setting. As a college student, you’ll also be exposed to petty politics as a result of misunderstanding or clash of opinions with fellow classmates, student organization members, or other social groups. Because petty college politics may affect your student life, you should learn how to best deal with it.

Overview of petty college politics

In what areas do petty college politics usually occur?

* Inside the classrooms. Competition for good grades is a mainstay in every classroom, even in college. The best way to win this game is to simply do your best. Control your anger; do not resort to name calling or bickering. Instead, try your best to be calm so you can confront any misunderstanding or untoward situation with a classmate or professor using a clear head.
* Among friendships or social groups. While bickering over a boyfriend or girlfriend or other issues that involve friends is normal, it would be best to avoid such situation. Try not to get too personal during arguments with a student group or friend. Know when it’s best not to react.

How can you steer clear from petty college politics? Here are some tips:

* Avoid taking sides and be a diplomat yourself, especially if you suspect that the issues are personal and self-centered. It may even be better if you just quit talking about it with people and simply listen.
* Deal with petty college politics objectively. Respect the views of others, especially when dealing with an authority. Listen to what they have to say before you raise any question politely.

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You are now making the transition from high school to college. At this point, a very important question that needs to be answered is where you are going to get college education. How do you choose which college to go to? Three popular options would be universities, community colleges, or ivy league academic institutions. Remember that each has its own list of benefits and disadvantages. Better take this into consideration before you take your pick. After which, you still need to narrow down your choices.  To help you through with this, this articles has simple tips to offer.

Tips on choosing  your college

When zeroing in your college of choice, you may consider narrowing down your choices through the following:

* What course program do you want to take? For example, if you want to take a bachelor’s degree in psychology and you prefer going to an ivy league institution, might as browse through the course listings. Narrow down your list to those that offer psychology programs or those that offer a specific field of specialization.

* How much college fund do you have? College education entails the cost of tuition and living expenses. Go to where your budget allows you. You can also seek financial aid from the various institutions, scholarships from the school itself, or student loans for additional funding.

* Is it a reputable college? Be sure that the college of choice may offer quality education and the training you need for building a future career. Check the course offering, credentials of the college faculty, and the method of teaching it is known for.

* Do your credentials fit in? This is perhaps the most important consideration. Remember that each college has its own set of admission standards that you need to meet. See to it that you get a list of its requirements before you submit an application.

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Every college student starts as a timid, awkward freshman adjusting to a new scholastic environment. While all first year students enter college with high hopes about their future, they will find, sooner or later, that adjusting to college life may actually be harder than they imagined. This is because when you go to college, your study habits may change– you are now preparing for a future career. You may no longer the happy-go-lucky and carefree student that you used to be in high school. You then have to realize that as a grown up, you will be taking more responsibilities. College life, on the other hand, can also be fun in the sense that you get to be more independent. You can live on your own and decide on what you want to do with your life.

To help you go through the college freshman year,  here are some survival tips:

* Make a conscious effort to talk to people. You don’t have to talk to all the people you meet, but at least, work on your communication skills. If you do, you may gain new friends and expand your social network.

* Be responsible. As a responsible college student, you need to take charge of your studies and basic needs. Now that you’re probably living in a college dorm, you have to consider your expenses as well. Don’t just blow your allowance on shopping sprees, clubbing, or splurging on stuff with your college pals. Always keep in mind that any time, you may have to buy some books, pay to get some school projects done, and foot other bills.

* Know when and where to ask for help. This is where school officials, especially the college guidance counselor, come in. When having problems with your studies, you always have the option to either seek group study sessions with your friends or casually seek guidance from professors.

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