It's August. Dig into your courses before they start!

Like a runner springing from the starting blocks, you stand a better chance of getting good grades in your courses if you get off to a good start. Don't wait until the first day of class to find out what it's all about. If you wander the corridors the first day trying to find your classroom and having no idea who the instructor is, that's a clue you're not likely to win the race.

One thing to do is go to the bookstore and take a look at the texts for your courses. You may not want to buy them there---there are other ways to obtain your texts---but spending 15 minutes in the bookstore leafing through the texts to get an idea what they are about is a good idea. Another thing you can do is talk to students in the dorms who have taken the courses: what do they recommend to get a good grade? Also, your course may make use of a  course management system like Blackboard. See if you can access it now. If you can, you may be able to download the syllabi for your courses and perhaps other documents. Read them before the course starts. If they raise questions in your mind, ask those questions on the first day of classes.

Here's the best idea of all: a day or two before classes start, walk by the offices of your instructors. If you see any of them are there, stop in and introduce yourself. Say you're looking forward to taking the course and ask if there's anything you need to do or know. You'll really impress the instructor--hardly anyone does this--and impressing an instructor can pay off in your final course grade!  If the instructors aren't around, stop at the desk of the department secretary and find out when you might be able to see them. It doesn't hurt a bit to know the department secretaries.

Do you have any ideas to add?  If so, write a comment below. I'd like to hear them.

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Are you still a teenager? If so, read this. If not, read it anyway.

Here's an interesting article on how to learn more without studying more. It's about the teenage brain, but has some good ideas for anyone:  http://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/on-parenting/2008/09/02/7-ways-to-learn-more-without-more-study.html

Advice on setting up your own internship

Can't find an internship? Make one for yourself. This article on the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation's blog tells you how:  http://blog.directworks.org/?p=71   Some of my students have done this in the past. Doing it requires a little initiative, but hey, if you don't have initiative you might want to re-evaluate your career choice!

Saving Money on Textbooks

There's a rebellion against expensive textbooks going on in universities around the country. $200 plus for a book you'll use one semester is a crime, I agree. So here are some ideas to save money.

First, every college student knows the obvious ways of saving money on textbooks, such as buying used books from other students rather than the bookstore, and buying them from the Internet. If you want a new book, you can try finding international editions on the Web, which are often identical or nearly so to the U. S. edition and less costly.

But more innovative ways are also possible, if you can talk to the professor a few months before the course starts. You might ask the instructor if the class could write and illustrate its own textbook as a semester project using a wiki. Sounds like a lot of work? Not when the entire class is collaboratively writing it. I think you'll learn a lot more this way, and save that $200.

Another possibility arises when you know that the instructor only covers a few chapters from the textbook. Why buy 21 chapters when you're only going to talk about 8 of them! Ask the instructor if he or she can order a "custom textbook" from the publisher that only includes those 8 chapters. Why would a publisher be willing to sell only 8 chapters? I don't really know, but one obvious reason is that selling 8 must be better than selling none. Another reason may be that a used custom book may not have much value and so won't compete with the publisher's own books, later. In fact, you may not be able to sell it to anyone, afterwards, but buying a custom book for $50 or $60 may look better to you than shelling out $200 and getting $100 later for it.

I'd love to hear from you if you can add ideas to the above list.

What's on your mind?

Got a question? Want some advice? Confused? Ask me anything about college, by simply replying to this post. I'll respond. Careful, though, your posts are readable by anyone, so don't ask me how many days you can wear the same pair of undershorts!

Do you party too much sometimes?

Parties where alcohol flows freely can be a lot of fun when you're in college. I know, I was there, once. Maybe this commercial will make you think twice about it, though. It's in French, but you don't have to know a word of French to understand every bit of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfMKktpowx0