10 essential items for the healthy college student

When you move away to school, staying fit and healthy can sometimes be a challenge. Below are some essential items every college student should equip themselves with to achieve ultimate health.

1. Lunchbox: Many dining halls offer meals only two times per day, and depending on class schedules, a college student could go hours on end without eating. It’s important to keep your metabolism revved by eating small meals throughout the day and Built NY’s neoprene lunch boxes are a perfect way to store snacks. Coming in a variety of trendy patterns and colors, it’s almost as if you’re carrying around a designer handbag.
2. Tupperware: Need a way to store food in your mini fridge? Pyrex brand glass tupperware containers are a durable and functional tool to stow away meals for an entire day.

3. Electric water kettle: As college students, we all experience late nights working on term papers or lab reports, and the only thing that gets us through them is a good cup o’ joe. Though it’s abused by many, coffee and tea have many health benefits, providing your body with antioxidants and a metabolic boost. Bodum’s modernly stylish electric tea kettle is a easy and efficient way to brew water for caffeinated drinks in the comfort of your own dorm room.

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Advice for the new college student

Hats off to you graduates! We’ve finally done it. While some of us are moving on to graduate school, a new job or an exciting adventure, we all have thoughts about what we wish we had known as a college student.
That’s not to say I regret any of my decisions as a college student — college was one of the best experiences of my life. However, over the past few weeks, I have been thinking about advice to give my now sophomore sister who attends the same university that I just left. While she is a much better student than me and probably knows all of this, they are still good tips to keep in mind.
While I realize that every student is different in how they approach their education, here are five final things that this graduate thinks may help you.

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5 ways to use the Internet to score your dream job

Taking advantage of online tools (with social media skills you already have from Facebook-stalking and live-tweeting award shows) can help you be five steps ahead of the pack.

Career services centers and word-of-mouth are great for learning about and pursuing job and internship openings, but taking advantage of online tools (with social media skills you already have from Facebook-stalking and live-tweeting award shows) can help you be five steps ahead of the pack.
As Amy Homkes-Hayes at the University of Michigan's Career Center put it recently: "The days of making everything online private are over, so I recommend students embrace the use of social media and the Internet in ways that positively showcase them."
Here are five tips for using the Internet to find internship and job openings — and make your resume rise to the top of the pile.
1. "Friend" your peers and co-workers on Facebook.

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6 ways you can spend less time studying and still get better grades

I’ve been studying really hard this semester, but my grades don’t reflect my hard work. What am I doing wrong?

Many people believe if you spend enough time studying, you’ll get good grades. Not true.
Time spent studying and getting good grades are not always as closely correlated as you might think.

1. Study a little bit every day.
It’s better to study a small amount every day than to study a huge amount the day before the exam. The brain actually needs time to process the material, so if you review your class notes 20 minutes a day for the week prior to the exam (7 days x 20 min/day = 140 minutes of study time), you’ll retain more information than if you study three hours the night before the exam (180 minutes).
That’s an example of a 40-minute savings on study time to produce better results in just one class.
2. Know which assignments carrying the most weight and work on those first.
Not all assignments are created equal. Knowing which ones are most important will help you prioritize your time.
If it’s not clearly outlined in a class syllabus, ask your professor how she determines your class grade and make smart choices based on this information.
In every class you usually have multiple assignments. A five-point project does not merit the same amount of time spent as a 50-point project, but if you’re not careful with your time, the five-point project ends up chewing up more time than it’s worth.
Be strategic and thoughtful about how you spend your time. Do the important projects first. Don’t get lulled into feeling productive when you’ve spent two hours on the five-point project if you have not spent two hours on the 50-point project first.





 It’s easy to spend a lot of time studying without producing good grades if you’re spending your time on the wrong things.
Be very mindful of how you spend your study time. Study each day, and be disciplined about focusing your time on the most important assignments as determined by how the assignment impacts your final grade.
The skills you learn in regard to prioritization and time management will help you be more successful in college and as well as your career. Learn them now, and you’ll thank yourself for years to come.

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3. Put in the time.
I recommend 10-12 hours per test as a starting point. Yes, I just wrote that.
If you earn too high a grade, cut back an hour or two for each test in a class until you settle out at the right amount of studying to achieve a low “A” grade. Remember, you’re in class for only 16 hours per week. In high school, you put in 40. You have hours you can commit.
If you want to land a great job out of college, there’s no better first step than committing the time to get a strong GPA.
4. Find a great study spot.
Where you study matters — a lot. Get out of the dorm. Get out of the student union. I generally don’t even like most floors of the main campus library. There’s just too much activity in those spots.
Find a quiet, out-of-the-way location where you can get focused. Almost any distraction will be more exciting to you than early European history or macro accounting (depending on your interests), so minimize the number of distractions you’ll experience.
5. Turn off your social media (and music).
There have been actual studies done showing that attempting to study while Tweeting, Facebooking and/or texting will diminish your results. Shocking, right?
My suggestion is to study for 50 minutes and then take a 10 minute study break and tweet until your heart is content. Then turn all of your media off again and go for another 50 minutes. Yes, I know it’s painful, but how badly do you want that A?
6. Learn the notes first.
Professors lecture on what they think it most important. They test to determine if you’ve grasped the most important material in the class.
As such, they will most likely test primarily from the lecture notes. Don’t follow this advice out the window. Buy the book. Read the book, and study it.
Just don’t focus on it at the expense of the notes (and shift your focus away from it after the first exam if you determine your professor is focused on the notes in his or her exams).

Achieving the grades you want is all about putting in the right quality and quantity of study time.
Increase your commitment (if you aren’t putting in 10+ hours per test in study time) and improve your technique and results will follow

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Get hired! 5 no-nonsense tips for landing your first job

You’re done. You’re done with finals, you’re done with dining hall food and you did your last walk of shame. It’s summer. Whether you already strutted your stuff to “Pomp and Circumstance” or if you’ll be back again next year, you’re ready to take on the world this summer. Only one small problem: you don’t have a job.
But don’t worry, according to research conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, employers indicate they plan to hire about 19 percent more graduates in 2011 than they did in 2010. And even better, Her Campus spoke to Jessica Kleiman, VP of Public Relations at Hearst Magazines and co-author of Be Your Own Best Publicist: How to Use PR Techniques to Get Noticed, Hired and Rewarded at Work, who offered to advice to recent graduates on scoring a job after graduation. Read on to find out the best tips for landing a job post-grad, whether that’s now or in a couple years.
Connections, connections, connections
“It’s important to connect with as many people as you can,” Kleiman says. “Which means everything from leveraging your alumni organization, to signing up for networking events in the industry.”
Networking and maintaining the relationships you make are vital in today’s job market. It’s important to keep in touch with anyone you meet, as you never know who may be able to help you in the future.
Her Campus contributing writer Rachel Kossman, a recent Northeastern grad, scored a job at Tech Target.
“Network, network, network,” she says. “Today’s day and age is all about who you know and who you can meet.”
She did an internship with her school’s co-op program at Tech Target and used that connection to land a job.
Of course, opportunities to network aren’t only limited to previous employment or designated “Network Nights” at your school. Be open to talking to anyone in your career path—whether it’s at your brother’s baseball game or your boyfriend’s graduation party—you never know who is able and willing to help you. Read >this article to find out how you can successfully network beyond the web.
Utilize informational interviews
One way to make these connections is by setting up and going on informational interviews. Kleiman explained informational interviews as a meeting with no real job attached to it, but rather as a way to get your foot in the door. That way you’re able to better understand the company and the job, and you make the connection for the future.
“You can ask them for advice for how to land a job at their company or at another company,” she says. “What it does is give people a chance to talk about what they do, but it also gives you an opportunity to get information.”
You can find people to contact for informational interviews by getting in touch with people you met in networking experience or asking people you already know—like friends or family—if they know anyone in your field of interest. An informational interview is a great way to make a first impression, establish your interest and keep in touch.
Keep your résumé to only one page
“You want to keep your résumé to only one page, particularly if you just graduated from college,” Kleiman says. “There’s never any reason for someone who doesn’t have any full-time work experience to have a résumé that goes over a page. You really want to edit it down to the most important information.”
However, don’t underestimate how important that one page could be! Danielle Monsiegneura, recent graduate of University of Connecticut and current summer intern at Her Campus, knows the importance of a good résumé.
“Take a good look at your résumé and really edit it to best market yourself,” she says. “Your résumé provides a strong representation not only of who you are as an employee but also as a person. A powerful résumé has the potential to create a great first impression.”
Try cutting your résumé down by editing your résumé based on the job you’re applying to and only including the necessary experience. Also keep your résumé as current as possible—you don’t need your clubs from high school when you graduated college!

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