collegestudentsrule

5 Ways To Sabotage Your Decision-Making Abilities

So you headed off to college and you are now your own person (except for all that money you had to borrow). One of the benefits of being your own person, is that you also get to make some important decisions. And there will be consequences to those important decisions you make. Sounds like fun, eh?

The ability to make good decisions and live with the consequences is something that each person has to deal with on his or her way to adulthood. We call this - a fact of life. But there's no guarantee that the decisions you make will turn out the way you hope.

So, in order to make a good decision, it's important to begin to remove some of the ways that people make bad decisions. Here's five barriers that decrease the likelihood that your decision will turn out in a positive manner:

1. Indecision - The rock band, Rush, has a line in one of their songs that basically says, "If you decide not to decide, you still have made a choice." When we avoid making a decision, we leave our lives up to chance. And chance is not a good decision maker. All we are doing is trying to escape the responsibility of a decision because of the risk, fear or anxiety. All those can be formidable barriers and cause our indecision. Fight them by being courageous and making a choice.

Overcome indecision by deciding to decide.

2. Stalling - Sometimes we believe that we can't make a decision until we have "complete" knowledge. So we look for as many facts, details, and nuances as we can. We want 100% of the information that's necessary to make a decision. Trouble is, you'll never get that. The obsessive gathering of endless facts is only a defense mechanism for not facing the decision we need to make.

Overcome stalling by setting a timetable by which your decisions will be made.

3. Overreacting - When we let a situation spin out of control, we run the risk of letting our emotions take control. At that point, we'll probably make a decision that ends in regret. It's not that one shouldn't trust his or her heart, it's just that a decision made in anger, revenge, or during an emotional collapse will probably make matters worse.

Overcome overreacting by calming down before you make important decisions.

4. Vacillating - I understand that a girl's prerogative is to change her mind, but not 50 times. When we continually reverse our decisions, we become wishy-washy and others have difficulty trusting us. Plus, a half-hearted commitment only adds to our chance that our decision will end in failure.

Overcome vacillating by making a decision and sticking to it.

5. Half-measures - This is similar to #4, except it relates to the person that makes just enough of a decision to get by but doesn't deal with the whole problem. Many people will make decisions in an attempt to avoid controversy or conflict, but they don't really solve the REAL issues.

Overcome half-measures by making the right decision no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

Peter Drucker once said, "A decision is a judgment - it is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between 'almost right' and 'probably wrong.'

College Students Want Honesty In Advertising & Intensity Of Personal Body Oder

Some people like commercials, others don't. If you do like commercials, it's probably because you enjoy the short stories that they tell, or the creative way they attempt to get their message across. For me personally, I enjoy a good laugh. I want a commercial that is funny. If it's funny, I'll rewind it and watch it over and over. But that's me.

Ypulse College Mashup research sponsor Survey U just completed a batch of research on college students that they will be presenting this Friday. One of the series of questions they asked students was about what they look for in advertising -- they asked them to rank which of the following characteristics were "extremely important" to "not important at all" with a couple of rankings in between. Here's what they found in the order of what's most important...

Be truthful
60 percent said extremely important
30 percent said somewhat important
7 percent said important nor unimportant
2 percent said not very important
2 percent said not important at all

Show the functionality
41 percent said extremely important
43 percent said somewhat important
11 percent said important nor unimportant
3 percent said not very important
2 percent said not important at all

Show me the value
38 percent said extremely important
43 percent said somewhat important
13 percent said important nor unimportant
3 percent said not very important
3 percent said not important at all

Read the rest of the survey results here.

As for the intensity of personal body oder, I did my own personal survey and found that college students really do want to know when they stink - especially if they stink really bad. So let's be honest with each other and keep the smelly pheromones to a minimum.

College Students More Interested In Spirituality Than Religion

Two articles recently caught my attention from the Ivy Jungle Update regarding the increasing quest of college students to identify and develop their own spirituality.

College Students Seek Meaning in Life: Researchers at the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute say their work shows that college students are in fact "spiritual but not religious."  For most college students, attendance at religious services decreases during their time on campus.  The study shows that approximately 43% of incoming freshman say they "frequently attend" services and only  about 20% say they "never attend."  By junior year those frequently attending has dropped to about  25% while those not attending at all are about 37%.   However, the researchers report a "significant growth" among students nationwide in the desire to "engage in a spiritual quest, to be more caring, and to develop and ecumenical worldview."   By junior year theses students showed sometimes significant increases in categories such as the  importance in "helping others in difficulty"; "reducing pain and suffering in the world;" "improving my understanding of other countries and cultures;" and support for "improving the human condition."  The study, which encompassed more than 14, 000 students from 136 campuses, describes these categories as increases in spirituality.  (USA Today December 18, 2007)

More on Religion and Spirituality:   The UCLA study on Spirituality in Higher Education study shows that students who entered college in 2004 reported an increase in their desire to grow spiritually, despite a drop in religious activities.  The researchers in the study define religion as "primarily belonging in a community of faith and following a dogma and the principles of a particular faith."  They define spirituality more broadly as "the search for meaning in one's life" and posing existential questions.  Increases in attitudes toward an "ecumenical worldview" (see above) were evident between freshman year and junior year.   However, most religious practices and beliefs such as prayer, belief in life after death, the importance of following religious teachings or personal rating of their own "religiousness" remained essentially flat.  Attendance at services dropped significantly.  Researchers are uncertain of the cause for the increases as 60% of students say professors never encourage discussion of religious or spiritual matters.  (Inside Higher Education December 18, 2007)

Hat Tip: IvyJungle.org

Sometimes The Best Resource Is A Great Resource List

One of the best websites at the top of my "Must Read Blogs" is Lifehack.org. It contains a daily dose of well-written articles dedicated to helping people take better control of their schedule, their organizational skills, and their sense of self.

Dustin Wax has just posted The Ultimate Student Resource List.

The list includes the following topics:

+ 10 Free Applications Every Student Needs
+ 11 Online Tools Every Student Should Check Out
+ 15 Websites For Students
+ 30 Pieces of Advice From Lifehack.org
+ 7 Online Research Resources

The only thing that I could think of to add to this amazing list is College Students Rule!

Read the entire article here.

So You Want To Be An RA [Resident Assistant]

By Guest Author: Karen Pearson

Ideas And Tips For Getting Hired This Spring

Opportunities for residence hall leadership are fast approaching. Soon you will see posters, message board announcements and strategically placed applications across campus. Are you considering applying? What do you have to offer and how best do you compete with your fellow students for this paid peer position?
Before applying you need to get the FACTS.

Here are some things to ponder as you decide if this leadership position is for you.

F- Does your future employer recognize your Face? 

+ Have you made an effort to get to know the Resident Director/Resident Counselor of the hall in which you want to serve?
+ What kind of connections have you made with your future boss? Have you taken the time to get to know them (or their families), have you found an opportunity to thank them for a job well done?
+ Do you know something that you share in common?

Make the time to get personal with your new potential employer, don’t let the first time you meet, be at the interview. If the position is in the hall that you currently live, have you gotten involved? Those students who have attended the hall events, volunteered for community service and served on the committees have a leg up on the students that have not made the effort to participate in the dorm activities. RD’s want to know that you enjoy hanging out in their hall; that you are willing to invest in the life of the residents.

A - Do you have an Angle?

+ It might sound calculated, but what is your angle?
+ How do you stand out from the rest of the candidates?
+ Do you have applicable experience that would increase your chances?
+ What skills do you have that would be invaluable to the RA staff?
+ Do you speak a foreign language, are you well traveled, do you play sports, do you excel in academics, play an instrument, are you from the local area? What knowledge or gifts do you have to contribute to a great RA team?

Figure it out and make sure you address those attributes in the interview process.

C - Make it Creative!

There is the potential that the Residential Life office will receive hundreds of applications for the open positions. Even small colleges wade through dozens of applications.
+ Besides making sure your application is professional and readable, how can you increase your chances that it will get noticed?

Hook up with a graphic design major and have them help you design a letterhead or a logo for your potential hall and add that to your application. When you get to the interview, why not bring a sample of a door tag or goodie bag that you might use to welcome your residents. Come in prepared to share some well thought out plans for some new activities and programs to use on your wing or area of service. Impress them with the creative details.

T- Do you have the Time?

A big red flag for your potential employer on campus will be the scope of your commitments in the coming year.
+ What does your schedule look like for the next semester?
+ You are a student first, so academics should be your priority and they understand that, but what is your credit load?
+ Will your internships or class work require you to be off-campus for extended periods during the day?
+ What is your availability in the late afternoon or evenings when you might need to be around the halls the most?
+ What do your extracurricular activities look like?

Intramurals, clubs, choir, volunteering; boyfriends/girlfriends… all of these opportunities have the potential to pull you away from your role as an RA. Be prepared to share your ideas for time-management and how you will make the role of the Resident Assistant a priority. You will be asked this question, be ready for it.

S- Student to Student…

Even though you are most likely interviewing with a campus employee and/or committee, remember that the people you will be serving are your fellow students. Before you answer the essay questions or participate in the role plays, do your homework with your peers.
+ What do the students in your hall need or want in a Resident Assistant?
Create a survey of current students and bring the results with you to your interview that is a great way for you to show your interest and stand out in the process. You will also learn what issues need to be addressed as you plan for the following year of service. Those students who take the survey will also be impressed that you want to hear what their needs are and give them some ownership in your events. Serving your fellow students is a great way to learn about leadership and yourself.

So grab your school calendars and mark the deadlines for the leadership positions that you want to apply for. If serving as a Resident Assistant appeals to you, try the above ideas and best of luck!
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Karen Pearson is the Director of Residential Life at Northwest Nazarene University. She loves working with college students and is currently obsessed with Scrabulous.

Less Is More - Being Excellent In A Few Things

By Guest Author: Nathaniel Fairchild

As you step out of the car on your first day of college, you are presented with a ton of opportunities to involve yourself. It seems that there are a thousand different groups waiting to get you on their sign up. You can sing, act, help the homeless, make film, serve in student government, play sports, help the elderly, and many other activities and groups are waiting for your participation. I’m not even going to mention all of your classes and homework.

Successful people are involved in everything they could possibly be involved in right?

The way to success is doing anything and everything right?

Wrong.

There is a great amount of pressure on students today to be as involved as they possibly could be. In High School, students are told that they must be overcommitted so that they can receive scholarships for college. In college, students continue that habit. For my first couple of years of school, I would wake myself up at 5:30 in the morning and go to sleep at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. I did as much as I possibly could.

I wanted to excel.

The problem was that the exact opposite thing was happening. I was mediocre in almost everything that I did. My commitment level was low. I was not able to give as much too each group as I needed to.

My spirit was dying.  I was so overcommitted that I had no time to sit and reflect, read, pray, even think. 

I was beginning to whither away.

Here’s a secret.

You can either excel at a few things or be mediocre in everything.

There are a million different things that you can be involved in at your university or college. That doesn’t mean that you have to be involved in all of them. Everyone that approaches you is going to think that their group, position, or club is the most important one of all. Their job is to recruit you into whatever they are doing. The temptation to over-involve yourself is enormous.

So what do you do?

What should you be involved in?

The answer to this question is simply complicated. Saying what you should do to avoid being overcommitted is a lot easier than actually doing it.

Find out what you are good at, and then do that.
Some of us have different gifts for different things. Some of us are good at speaking in public. Some of us are athletic. Some of us can paint, draw, and sculpt. Some of us are compassionate and find talking to people easy. Some of us are academic. Some of us are leaders. Some of us are followers.

Are you catching my drift?

Reflect on what you are gifted and skilled in and then pour your energy into that. Don’t spend a lot of time and energy on things that you are not gifted or skilled in. Find out what you are built for and then excel in that.

There is nothing more impressive or breathtaking than seeing someone that has found out what they are good at and has poured their time and energy into that.

Examples:
• Pavarotti
• Gandhi
• Mother Theresa
• Olympic Athletes
• Peyton Manning
• Lance Armstrong

The list goes on of people that found their purpose and pursued that.  Everything else is just distraction.

As you go through your college career, try to find what you are good at and then set your mind to becoming the best you can be. Don’t over commit yourself. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

Think about it this way.

We are all given a quart of paint. You can try to stretch that quart of paint to cover an entire room. If you do that, you will have holes and imperfections. You will have missed spots and an overall ugly job. People will look at that wall and criticize and complain about the job.

Or you can use that quart of paint to cover one square yard of the wall. If you do that, you will have a beautiful, thick coat of paint without flaw. You won’t have missed spots or ugliness. You applied your resources to one area and came out with a great result. People will look at that and be impressed.

Find out who you are and be the best “you” you can be.
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Nathaniel Fairchild is a recent graduate of Northwest Nazarene University. He is currently the youth pastor at Greeley First Church of the Nazarene. He lives in Greeley, Colorado with his beautiful wife, Chelsey. You can read more about Nathan's work at phileosm.com.

Hey College Students...Looks Like You're Okay After All

There have always been a number of studies done that attempt to demonstrate (or demonize) the young people of today as self-absorbed, money-hungry, narcissistic children. Of course, don't you wish we were all judged by our worst moments like that.

Anyways, a recent New York Times article by Stephanie Rosenbloom, seeks to shed a slightly brighter light on the up and coming generation. She writes,

Some scholars point out that bemoaning the self-involvement of young people is a perennial adult activity. (“The children now love luxury,” Plato wrote 2,400 years ago. “They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”) Others warn that if young people continue to be labeled selfish and narcissistic, they just might live up to that reputation.

“There’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Kali H. Trzesniewski, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario. Ms. Trzesniewski, along with colleagues at the University of California, Davis, and Michigan State University, will publish research in the journal Psychological Science next month showing there have been very few changes in the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of youth over the last 30 years. In other words, the minute-by-minute Twitter broadcasts of today are the navel-gazing est seminars of 1978.

This new research flies in the face of the research of Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, who along with colleagues has found that narcissism is much more prevalent among people born in the 1980s than in earlier generations. Ms. Twenge’s book title summarizes the research: “Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before” (2006, Free Press).

I tend to see the college student as a glass half full - lots of potential and already doing so many things to make the world a better place. Of course...that's why I think that college students rule! (cue cheesy music).

Read the entire article here.

Credits Are Greatest Consideration When Transferring To Another College

The College and University Blog has written an insightful article for those students who want to make the jump from a community college to a four year college or university. They list some important questions that one will want to get answered:

• How many transfer students are admitted in any given term?
• What grade-point average should students earn to have a good shot of being admitted?
• Should students apply as sophomores or juniors?
• Are community-college applicants given special admissions consideration?
• How can a student become minimally eligible to transfer to the school?

Of course, one of the biggest factors that a student should know about is which credits will transfer. Students often take a number of courses at a two year college that end up not being eligible to make the trip with you. If you know up front that you will be transferring to another school at some point in your education, it's wise to find out which credits/courses have the best chance of being applied toward graduation at your new school.

Read the entire article here.

Seeing Professors Clearly

By Guest Author: Michael Leddy

As a college freshman in 1975, I took up the now-vanished practice of turning in postcards with final exams so that my professors could send me my course grades before university grade-reports were tabulated and mailed. One postcard came back with a semester grade (A) and the words "With a little help from my inability to do higher mathematics!"

That postcard confirmed my sense that my professor was a nasty, sarcastic man. He was after all the same professor who had criticized my writing all semester, pointing out my dangling participles, my pointless rhetorical questions, and my constant use of the word this to begin sentences. And now he was intent on somehow souring my A for the semester!

But I couldn't have been more wrong in my thinking. As a junior, I took two more courses with James P. Doyle and began to realize that he was the most generous, most inspiring teacher I would ever know. When I was a freshman though, hugely insecure about my ability to negotiate academic life -- and hugely insecure about everything else -- I couldn't see what now seems plain: my professor was making a joke when he wrote that postcard. He was an English teacher, after all, joking about his own inadequacies, and trusting that I was smart enough to get the joke. I wasn't.

Now that I get to think about these matters from the front of the classroom, I count five misconceptions that often make it difficult, even impossible, for college students to see their professors clearly:

1. "Professors have you figured out from your first grade."

Most professors are happy to recognize improvement in a student's work. I sometimes see students go from Fs and Ds to Bs and As in the work of a semester. Seeing a student begin to take interest in a class and improve her or his work makes almost any professor feel a bit happier and a bit more successful. The student who feels categorized by a first grade might be the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you feel that you're never going to do better than, say, a C+, there might be little reason to try to do better.

2. "Professors give grades based on whether they agree with you."

Most professors are more than willing to acknowledge that multiple interpretations or points of view are possible and plausible. Professors are much more interested in your ability to develop and support an argument than in agreeing with that argument. They are likely to admire an effort to develop a position that gives them something to think about and, perhaps, argue with. And by the way, professors don't "give" grades. Your work is what earns them.

3. "Every professor wants something different."

Most professors value clear, cogent, well-informed reasoning and writing. Different expectations are often a matter of different disciplines, not different professors. The wordplay that wins respect in Creative Non-Fiction might not go over well in Business Communication. The single-sentence paragraphs appropriate in Intro to Journalism won't work in Intro to Literary Criticism. But that's because different standards apply in each field, not because professors are insisting on their own idiosyncratic recipes for good writing. And while different professors might place more or less emphasis on various writing errors, that doesn't mean that comma splices are sometimes okay and sometimes not, only that some professors might be paying more attention to your writing than others.

When professors do want things their way, it's likely to be about relatively modest matters-- paper clips rather than staples, serif rather than sans serif fonts. If you were reading hundreds of essays, you'd probably get a little particular too.

4. "Professors don't care whether you come to class."

Some don't. Most do. But professors recognize that it's a student's choice to show up or not, to take notes or not, to follow a discussion or lecture or drift away in inner space. It's unlikely that a professor will extend a favor to a student who has frequent unexplained absences or whose presence in class does nothing to help the cause of learning.

5. "Professors are obstacles on the way to a diploma."

This misconception, unlike the first four, is rarely articulated. It's pervasive nonetheless among students who practice various forms of educational gamesmanship -- reading plot summaries instead of novels, plagiarizing essays, cheating on exams, concocting phony excuses for late work and absences. Students who see their professors as obstacles would do well to consider that their own attitudes are the real obstacles to graduation, impeding any possibility of genuine learning.

You may encounter a professor who will confirm every misconception I've described: someone who does decide semester grades early on, who allows no disagreement, who is arbitrary and idiosyncratic and oblivious, and who really does make life miserable. When you encounter such a professor, run -- if that's possible. Such professors betray not only their students but the very idea of learning. Most professors are better than that -- if your eyes are open enough to see them.
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CollegeStudentsRule! was sooo excited when Professor Leddy agreed to write an article for this site. Michael Leddy teaches college English and has published widely as a critic and poet. He is the author of "How to e-mail a professor" and blogs at Orange Crate Art.

Do You Have Time For Faith?

Article: How Can College Students Incorporate God Into Their Lives?
From the article: One thing that first must be viewed as a college student is whether the faith is really their own or is it the faith of their parents or grandparents. If the faith is their own, he/she will not have a problem because it is already the major component of their life.

While the article that I linked to above has some very practical advice about maintaining the awareness of your spiritual life, I believe it asks the wrong question.

I think a better question is: How can college students incorporate their lives into what God is doing?

Asked the first way, and it appears as if one is trying to apply spiritual principles to one's life much like you would time management principles. Asked the second way, and it causes one to realize who really is GOD in the question being asked.

I don't think spirituality works if you simply try to make God PART of your life. From what I've experienced, God wants all of it.

What do you think?