Getting a place of your own

Getting out of the dorms may sound like a good idea and it is for the most part. Just realize you are going to have more roommates and more things to take care of. You will have to start paying bills and collect money from roommates to pay them. The big thing is just maintaining the place you live though.

You are going to run into trouble if you like to keep the place clean, but your roommates don’t really care. Don’t believe someone that says they are clean either. Look at their dorm to get an idea, most slobs claim to be neat and clean.

The problems I run into most are just getting my roommates to put their stuff away. They will leave the possessions all over the house. They also will only do their dishes about once a week. My roommates don’t ever want to clean anything either, this means vacuum, clean the bathroom, ect.

I would suggest that most people try to get a place with 3 people. My sophomore year I had a house with 8 people and that was just way to many people. People would make messes and not really care. They would then claim it was not theirs later. Also with having so many people there was just no respect for another’s stuff.

You will have to start cooking your own meals too. This means going to the store and buying food. Cooking food is more time consuming then just going to the dinning hall. There are also a lot more dishes that come with that. It also might get really annoying if your roommates don’t do their dishes and you need the pots and pans that they decided not to clean to make your food.

Drinking Underage

So you’re in college and you are not 21, but you want to drink anyways. While this may not be legal it is pretty easy to do. The easiest way to do it is just to go to fraternity parties. The best thing about fraternity parties is that they are free. You can’t just walk in though. You need to know someone on the inside. If you know someone that is in the fraternity, you can have them put your name on the list. Then you and all the friends you want to bring with you are free to party.

When walking around outside after drinking, you need to be smart. This means do not walk around with any alcohol, remember you are underage. A even bigger no no is to have an open beer, which I have seen plenty of people do. You have to realize that there are police out at night looking to bust people. They do not only come in police cars either. The police will frequently just be in plain clothes walking down the sidewalk.

It is basically an unwritten rule that if you don’t do anything stupid, the police will leave you alone. This means again, no open containers. It also means make sure you walk strait, aren’t yelling, pissing in public, or defacing property. So just be smart and you will be fine, but if you decide to be stupid they will be more than willing to give you a ticket.

Many people over drink, including me. You will puke at some point from overdrinking, I still do. Apparently I did the other night, but I don’t remember it. If you are already drunk, it might be a good time to slow down the drinking. As in maybe stop for an hour since you still have more alcohol in your body that is not affecting you yet. That’s what always gets me. I will stop drinking, but I am still getting more drunk. The worst part about over drinking is trying to go to bed. The problem is when you close your eyes, everything may start to spin. Don’t forget to sleep on your stomach too.

Bringing a car to campus

Before you move to the dorms your freshman year you are told several times that you can not bring a car to college since you will not have a parking pass. Don’t let them scare you away from bringing a car. There are plenty of places to park a car.

I believed what I was told when I first came to Purdue, so I left my car at home. I realized that was a lie though. I went home got my car a couple of weeks after college started. I found that you really only want to take your car out of its parking place on the weekends though. If you take your car out at odd times when all the other spaces are full you can be stuck driving around for a while to find a space.

The most convenient place to park your car is on Waldron or Russel. These streets are located between the Windsor dorm and the Math building. Another place I parked my car when I was a freshman was on the other side of campus, the east side. This is the area past Northwestern Ave if you are coming from the dorms. About half of the parking over there is two hour parking and the other half has no time restrictions.

Another good thing to note is that if you want to take your car out on Friday and not put it back into street parking till Sunday you can. By the dorms you may have noticed that there are AB permit parking. Most of those spaces are only enforced Monday through Friday and only till 5PM.

Bringing a car to campus is really nice because then you do not have to rely on others to help you go shopping or go home. Also it will help keep you from having to take the bus just to go to Wal-Mart. It is also nice just to have the freedom to do what you want.

Helpful Tips

Here are some basic useful tips that will help you survive your freshman year and can also be applied to your daily life. The first tip that I will offer is to make sure you get to know your roommate thoroughly and know what each other likes. For instance, studying with the music on or off, leaving a light on when you sleep, and having the television on when someone is trying to sleep. Your roommate will be with you the whole year so you need to make sure you make a good impression and get things figured out when you first get there and not just let everything pile up. Also, another helpful tip would be to get to know the people on your hall and in your residence buildings. You will see them every day and are going through the same emotions and experiences.

Find the perfect little niche or place where you can sit down, study, and focus on your work. If you find that cozy spot where you can get things done you will be more productive. You will not get distracted or lose focus on your subjects. When you are sitting there with your friends and watching television you get distracted and it takes you double the time to get things accomplished.

A third and obvious tip that I would suggest would be just going to classes. Even those rough 7:30 a.m. classes where you just want to sleep and find yourself struggling to get up and hitting the snooze button. When you go to class, you will learn the material and some professors give you helpful tips on what the test will be like and the test questions. They also inform you if there will be any changes to your test times and what will be covered.

During your first week or two of classes, make connections with people in your classes. They will be a great benefit to you whether you have questions about homework or upcoming quizzes or forming study groups that will help you concentrate and stay focused. Through meeting your peers in class you will have someone to sit with each time and after awhile you tend to get introduced to their friends and keep meeting new people.

If you have ever been to a college dining court, then you know how much greasy food they serve you and most of it is horribly bad for you. Make sure you try and eat a good balanced diet and not get sick off of eating just plain junk. You need to try and eat right and exercise as much as you can. The more exercising you do, the better you will feel about yourself. Another word of advice is to sleep. Sleep is crucial to survival and without it you get nothing done. You need to set an approximate time to go to bed during the week and stick to it. After a certain point in the night if you are up trying to cram for a test you will never remember what you are studying in the morning. These are just a few of the things that I have noticed that have helped me greatly in college.

Early to bed and early to rise...

...makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. I don't know if this is true, but I do know that going to bed early will make you much less likely to sleep through class. Like I did. Twice. Last week on both Thursday and Friday, I slept through my first few classes. I know some of you are reading this and thinking "Oh, well sometimes I sleep through my 7:30s too." The sad thing about this is that my earliest class on those days isn't a 7:30. It isn't an 8:30. On Friday, it isn't even a 9:30. That's right, I slept through a 10:30 class. In fact, I slept through one on both days, bringing the total classes missed up to three. I woke up on both days at around 10:40, when I finally realized that my phone was going off because my friends were wondering where I was. Let me tell you, those were a bad few classes to miss. One of them was a class that meets only once a week and where my teacher doesn't accept late work, and another was ENGR 100. For those of you lucky enough not to be taking engineering classes, in ENGR 100 if you miss more than two classes, you fail. No questions. I had already missed one class, so now if I ever miss another one I get an automatic F. Ouch.

Why was I so tired? It's because my normal weekday bedtime is about 2 A.M.

********SPOILER ALERT********

You cannot function properly for long periods of time on 6 hours of sleep.

********SPOILER ALERT********

I know this seems stupid at first. "Of course I can function; I do it all the time!" Well, no. True, you can function practically as well in the short term on 6 hours of sleep as you can on 8. However, if you do it for a week or two, the sleep deprivation takes its toll. I like to think of it as a "sleep debt." Every time you get less than a full night's sleep you add to that debt until finally the sandman makes you pay up. Take my advice and try to get a full night's sleep as often as you can.

Time to Blog

I know, I know, this is pretty late for an introduction post, but I don't have one yet and I feel that you readers should have some idea of where the ideas and stories on this blog come from. Also, I have to have this done by the end of the week. Expect most of my posts to come at crunchtime. It's not that I don't like to write; it is just that I have motivation issues. If you are wondering about my name, it is a variant spelling of "dark bear" in Old Norse. I think. Don't ask why I use this name because I haven't the slightest idea.

Anyway, I am a freshman in the College of Science, studying math (woohoo!). My friends pretend to hate my major, but they sure change their minds when homework comes due. I am in the fencing club here at Purdue, and am considering joining the Reamers club and the Society of Physics Students. I come from Lexington, Kentucky, which is the home of the University of Kentucky. We aren't very good at football, but we do well in basketball (mostly). While the vast majority of my friends went to UK, I convinced a couple to come to Purdue with me. One of them went into the college of engineering. He makes me very glad that I am in science instead. The other went into biology, which doesn't seem too bad. It appears to be about as tough as my own major (i.e. not very). You all will undoubtedly end up hearing more about these two friends eventually in my posts, since I am the one writing them and I probably spend 90 percent of my day with these people.

As to the topic of my posts, there will probably be no unifying theme or anything to hold all my writing together. I will post about whatever struck me as most interesting on a given day. However, I will try to write my posts with the welfare of freshmen everywhere in mind, enabling them to benefit from my mistakes and/or triumphs. I look forward to a semester of writing with you all!

Love everyone. Trust no one.

As I stated in an earlier post, I believe that there is good in everyone and that it is simply a matter of looking for that good. But believing that the human race is good as a whole doesn’t justify being naïve.

Lock your doors. I don’t care if you’re just going to check your mail (snail mail). Lock your door. Always.

If you have a bike on campus, be warned that people will do stupid things. They will let all the air out of your tubes. They will bend your wheels. They will slash the tires and the tubes. They will steal your seat. They will steal your bike (even if it is chained up). Bring your bike up into your room at night (if possible) or see if you really need a bike. People haven’t been known to steal feet! : )

When in the cafeteria, don’t leave your phone or bag or anything that means something to you at your seat while you go get food. I have found that if you get a tray and a drink, and leave it at a seat, people leave it alone. I’ve only had one incidence where this hasn’t completely worked. Someone mistook my tray lacking food for an abandoned seat. The tray with my water was still there. No harm. I did find another seat.

Don’t leave your blinds open at night. As silly as it sounds, people do have binoculars and they do look into people’s rooms from their windows.

Always have pepper spray or something along those lines if you do a lot of walking by yourself, especially when it’s not light outside. Take it with you for your morning run (ha! I sleep), or to that frat party (which I am supposed to tell you to not go).

These things may seem extreme (or some people’s actions insane), but simple preventative measures help make life much easier. You are put at ease knowing that your personal effects are secure, as are you.

The Roundup

Alright, so every Friday I'm going to try and do a little thing I'm going to try calling "Friday Roundup." Basically, I'm just going to cover little things that I've seen or found out or thought about in the last week or so. I'll try and keep them related to recent goings-on at college.

1.) Purdue football takes on Central Michigan at home on Saturday afternoon. Should be another blowout. Anybody else just waiting for them to play a real game?

2.) Don't you just love it how people manage to drop calculators and phones every time a lecturer pauses during class? It is guaranteed you will hear something hit the ground in those precious moments of silence.

3.) Little advice I just picked up today: Do not keep your alarm clock within arms reach of your bed. You are guaranteed to hit the snooze button and almost miss your 7:30 AM Chem Lab.

4.) Anybody else getting sick of the dorm food by now? I eat at Ford, and the first couple weeks I was pumped... I thought it was good food. Now I can hardly stand to look at the stuff they serve. Is it me, or is it just getting worse and worse there?

5.) Saturday also marks the meeting of two once-respected football programs that are now just trying to pick up their first win of the season. I'm talking of course about Michigan and Notre Dame. Both teams are 0-2, so at least somebody's walking away with a win tomorrow. I'm still skeptical. Here's a little preview: http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/preview?gameId=272580130

6.) Don't you just love those classes where the lab and the lecture don't seem to be related in any way?? If your at Purdue and your taking Engineering 126 you know exactly what I'm talking about.

7.) Again, I'm a big sports fan so I'm going to keep hitting you with that stuff. West Virginia beat Maryland last night in football, Steve Slaton picked up three touchdowns. This kid is for real and I think he's going to have a great season. Of course I only know this from playin NCAA 08, so I opinion could be a little off.

Alright 7 is the best I could do for now. I promise I'll get better as time goes. I'll also end with a quote at the end of each post, just something for you to think about...

"Do what no one else does, and one day you will have what everyone else wants."
-anonymous

Distractions

Have you ever picked up a Nintendo Wii controller, played one game and then thought to yourself, "I'm not putting this thing down at all tonight." It's a great idea, let me tell you. This was my excuse for not doing my Engineering 126 Homework or my English homework on time (see first post).

So after being at college for three weeks, there's one thing I've found out. There are a minimum of about two million different distractions once you get to college. Anything you want to do, you can find a place to do it at and people to do it with. It amazes me how many different excuses you can find to not do your homework or not go to class.

So what it comes down to is this: college is all about advancing your knowledge in fields such as math, science, history, law, etc. But as if that wasn't enough, there's even more to it. You see, high school is a protected world, relatively closed off from the outside. You go there, you come back and you see very little of what's going on around you in the world. When you get to college, you have to handle the world and school at the same time, and it's a totally different game. Blowing off classes is much easier, and there is less short-term ramifications; but unfortunately people don't realize that the long term ramifications are much larger.

College is supposed to teach you to balance life, to be able to resist temptation and at the same time stay on track with your work, whatever that may be. I am a mere rookie in this game, but in my three weeks I have learned a few things:

1.) Know where you have to be. I went to the wrong class twice in the first week, and let me tell you that there is no more embarassing conversation than when you approach the real teacher after class is already over.

2.) Prioritize! You gotta know when to do what. Weekdays are usually not going to be a good night to go out drinking. You gotta do work before it's due, and you have to study for quizzes and exams.

3.) Go to class... even if it's a ridiculously timed 7:30 AM Chemistry lab... you gotta go, and you gotta get up on time, otherwise it is a mad dash to get there on time (trust me).

4.) Don't watch TV or listen to music or play Madden 2007 while you are doing english homework. Trust me, it takes forever and doesn't get you anywhere soon.

A Quick Transition

Transitioning into college seems to be on a lot of people’s minds, even parents and friends around this time of year. Why is it one of student’s biggest fears? Why does it seem like an overwhelming and stressful task? College indeed is a major step to take in life and you have to decide if it is right for you or not. It takes you to a brand new place with so many new and exciting things to try that sometimes you just do not know where to begin. It takes you out of your daily routine, tradition, and comfort zone. You have the ability to start fresh and be who you want to be and not worry about what happened in the past. You no longer have anyone telling you what to do and your parents are not watching your every move. It is a time to make new friendships and discover who you truly are.


College is a totally different atmosphere and is not like high school at all. I believe the whole transition just takes time. It is not impossible you just have to live and learn. You have to get use to being self-motivated, independent, and organized. Organization is the key to being successful in your first couple of weeks especially. Professors and teaching assistants all give you information that you must retain and certain dates and times when everything is due. I would suggest keeping a planner or schedule so you can write everything down because it would be impossible to remember everything. Another adjustment would be your classroom settings and having huge lectures that are filled with 400 people. This is very overwhelming at first and you have to adjust. Some of my classes I will never even meet my professor and receive one on one attention.


Some words of advice would be to not give up and take things step by step. Everything at first may seem overwhelming but when you break everything down you will realize it is not that hard. Make sure you do not procrastinate and get all your assignments and papers done as soon as possible. You will then end up having more time to relax, kick back, and hang out with your new friends. Also, do not live in your dorm room, get out and introduce yourself to new people; everyone is in the same position that you are. You can also join extracurricular activities such as clubs and teams to socialize and stay active. The only way to conquer this transition is through experience and not giving up.

Snooze Button=Life Ruiner

So I know you are probably getting tired of reading blogs that are as long as a chapter book, and I can't promise you that it won't continue to be that way, but for now, I'm just going to make this relatively short.... maybe.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I was late to a class yesterday because I took the bus system. Contradictory to what you hear, the bus does not take you exactly where you need to go (at least not right away) If someone tells you that, they're lying. The bus has to make plenty of other stops before it's your turn to get off. That's that. So plan accordingly if you are on your way to class, or you will be 7 minutes late, and you will be marked tardy. And that's another thing. Before I came to college, everyone I knew who had gone to college before told me that professors and TA's don't care if you show up to class or not. "It's YOUR responsibilty," they said. THEN WHY WAS I COUNTED TARDY?! HMMM?! There ya go-- two perfect examples of something you hear that's probably not true.

Something similar happened to me again today. When I went to bed last night, I set my alarm for 8:30 this morning. So the alarm rang today, and you know how it is when you're too tired, and you smack that snooze button (don't deny it... we all do it...). I used to think that the person invented that snooze contraption was a genius. I've officially changed my mind. I'm not too fond of that person anymore. If it weren't for that person, I wouldn't have been 16 minutes late for my 9:30 am bio lab this morning. I woke up at 9:28, and it takes me 20 minutes to get there. So I'm sitting up in my bed, and I'm thinking to myself, "Is it really 9:22? I have a 9:30 class!! How does this happen?!?!? It takes me 20 minutes to get there, sooo... AHHHH!!!!!!" I jumped out of bed, changed my clothes, brushed my teeth, threw my books into my bag, and left. When I walked out the door, it was 9:33 am. I got to lab at 9:46, and the TA's had just finished taking roll call. And even though I was there, and completed today's lab assignment, I was still counted absent. *Now once again, I thought college professors and TA's didn't care!!!* Supposedly if I would have just emailed one of my TA's about my problem, they would have cut me some slack. WHO THINKS OF STUFF LIKE THAT WHEN THEY'RE FREAKING OUT AND THEIR ADRENALINE IS GOING INSANE?!?!....NOT ME! I guess if this happens to you-- instead of freaking out-- just stop and breathe for 2 seconds and think of anything you can do to make the situation easier on yourself or to prevent something like this from happening. Fortunately for me, but unfortunate for you, I can't give you advice when it comes to sleeping through a class and completely missing it because I haven't done that yet. But the way my luck is goin, it'll probably happen tomorrow....

I hate that snooze button.

Gosh Survivor, you were right! Those buses REALLY are tricky!

I can tell you right now that unless you go (or plan to go) to a college that utilizes a bus system, this particular blog entry will probably not interest you in the least bit. As I have mentioned before, I go to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and for the first time today (in fact, it happens to be my one month anniversary of living here at Purdue!!), I rode a campus bus. I had always been a little apprehensive about using the bus system because there are a number of buses and each has a different route, and even though I have a bus schedule, I have had a continual feeling that if I get on a bus, I would still end up on the wrong one, leading me to the wrong destination.

Anyway, I had just got done with my 830 class and did not have another until 11:30 so instead of walking the usual 20 minutes back to my dorm today, I decided I should just conquer my fears and ride one of those bad boys. So my friend (who had never ridden the bus either) and I walked 2 seconds to the bus stop, and we began to scrutinize the schedule to find which bus/route would take us to the closest area where we wanted to go. Eventually the right bus pulls up and we get on and sit down. The bus made frequent stops before we even got close to the Shreve Residence Hall, At each stop, people were either getting on or off and all of a sudden, the bus went right past Shreve!! Now what the heck?! We had no idea that we had to pull down on a black handle in order to indicate to the driver that we wanted to stop and get off. Of course, she and I ended up at the same bus stop at which we got on in the first place. My advice to you: LOOK AROUND AND OBSERVE WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING INSTEAD OF STARING OUT THE WINDOW ENJOYING THE SCENERY. Chances are they’ve ridden the bus before and they know the routine and/or they’re just not as stupid as some of us can be.

In order to get to my 11:30 class, I decided to take the bus again because I knew exactly how to use it this time! I was pretty excited about it and all so I go to the bus stop, got on when the bus pulled up, sat down, and ended up stopping at 6 different stops before my stop. I was late to my 11:30 by 7 minutes. I know for a fact that walking would have been a lot quicker. So how about you don’t take the bus if you are trying to get to class (just to be safe!!). More often than not, walking is probably quicker anyway. Besides, 8 out of 10 times, if you take a bus, you're just being lazy. =)

If you are just absolutely set on riding the bus, here are a few more helpful tips integrated into this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKzilLsUZCw

i know... i am late

Hopefully this is the sixth and final time you read it, but welcome to our blog. You probably know what we're all about by now because I am so late in starting, but if not check out the first post... it should let you know what we're going to talk about here. In fact, the first post should tell you about us in about 16 different ways, so have fun.

So time for a quick introduction... since I can't tell you my name, you'll just have to do without that. I'm from Houghton, MI which is right at the tip of the Upper Peninsula. It's really a great place and I can't wait to go back. I'm a freshmen at Purdue University, studying engineering. I haven't really decided which field of engineering I want to go into yet, but I figure I have a year to sort that out. I'm a big sports fan.... mostly basketball and football. I'm sort of a Michigan fan, which is pretty tough to admit at this point in time. Since I like sports so much, I'll probably post about that a lot, so all the other sports fans out there should check back once in awhile. While we're on the topic, can anybody believe how far Michigan has fallen in the last 2 weeks?? From being dubbed title contenders to having the entire season ruined is absolutely unbelievable. For god's sakes, they lost to a Division 1-AA team! How bad do you feel for Mike Hart? The guy is a great football player who just wanted to beat Ohio State and win a national title. The way the Wolverines are playing right now, they don't even belong on the same field as Ohio State.

Anyways, I apologize in advance because there is a good chance I go off on a lot of tangents like that. But back to me (as selfish as that sounds), I hope to cover other stuff besides sports too. I'm slowly realizing the number of distractions there are in college, and talking about that is another topic I hope to hit at some point in the future. In fact, I'm going to end this post and get started on my next one, because I need to write that one pretty quick.

-johnq

Keeping the Freshman 15 … Off

It is easy to gain weight when you first come to college. One reason is that a lot of people are less active than they were in high school. In high school you at least have gym class where you get your blood pumping, but in college there is no such thing as having a gym class. Some people make up for this by going to the Co-Rec. The Co-Rec is actually a really good place to go workout and they actually just extended there hours this year. They are now open till 2am Monday through Thursday and Midnight on Friday and Saturday. Going to the gym sounds good, but that has never gotten me to go. I just don’t have the motivation to go all the way over there. Also I can always just use the excuse that I have other school work to do.

Instead I try to eat somewhat healthy. My weight has been pretty steady my entire time in college. I am now a senior. When I ate in the dining halls my freshman year I found them to have plenty of things that were really bad for you. My first strategy was to try to avoid the really bad things. I kept away from the Hamburger/French Fries station like the plague. I also tried to keep away from other fatty things such as items with a lot of cheese and mayonnaise. A lot of the food on the buffet that had the mashed potatoes, carved meat, and various other home styles food are also really bad for you. I am not saying you can’t eat any of that food, just make educated decisions. Just think about how much fat is in something and if there is something else that is appealing and has less fat. Meats like roast beef have a lot of fat in them. I stuck mostly to the Chinese and sandwich stations.

Another thing to keep the weight off when you go to the dining hall is to control how much food you get. There are a lot of tempting foods, so you are going to want to try it all, but you don’t really need to. They will have it again in about a week. I personally limited my self to one plate of food. When I say that, I don’t mean one heaping plate of food either.

One thing you don’t think about is how bad all that late night takeout food is. It is almost all really bad for you. Also eating closer to bed is going to allow your body to store more of the fat from the food than it normally would. Think about if you are really hungry or if you are just getting food because you are bored or have been drinking. If you must get food try to eat only two slices of that pizza or half of that Chinese food. My last word of advice is to try to drink water not soda since soda has calories you don't really need. I personally happy just drinking water and it is way cheaper than soda.