College Students Can Now Get Microsoft Office For Free

College students can now get microsoft office for free

Just go here and sign up with your college email. You can install it on up to 5 PCs or Macs and on other mobile devices, including Windows tablets and iPads.

University classes are a monster you can’t prepare for until you’re in them. I have been through every up and down with schoolwork possible in the past year, so here are some tips that can hopefully help you avoid those downs:

Choosing and Registering for Your Classes

Make sure to thoroughly check both your major requirements and your gen ed requirements. Normally, you’ll have an advisor to help you make sure you’re on track, but Vandy doesn’t assign first-year engineering students one until after registration when school starts, and I didn’t have an advisor for this year’s registration either due to my major change, so I’ve spent hours and hours doing this on my own. There’s often recommended courses and example schedules in the course catalog that tell you what classes you should be taking at this point in time. Pay attention to that and you should be fine. For example, you have to have taken a first-level writing class to qualify for junior standing here. Those are the little things you have to look out for. To keep track of it all, I have a spreadsheet I use for planning my sophomore - senior years that lists all the requirements I need to meet in terms of hours and courses in order to graduate on time. I plug in possible courses and see which requirement they would fulfill and when. You can check it out here to see what I mean, it’s very helpful.

Find at least one fun elective to take if at all possible. It gets very tiring when all you have on your schedule are really difficult classes that you don’t enjoy. Try to find at least one class that you’re genuinely interested in to help get you excited for the day. Each of my last semesters, my schedule consisted of a calculus class, a lab science, a comp sci class, and Italian. Italian was the only fun one that I enjoyed going to. It really helps you out. You’re not just in college to get your degree, you’re there to discover what you really want to do, so feel free to explore your catalog and take something completely out of character just because you want to. Bonus if it fills some kind of requirement (Italian filled my Foreign Language Proficiency and one of my International Cultures reqs.).

Have multiple versions of your schedule based on which classes you may or may not get into. I don’t know about your school, but at Vanderbilt, class registration is literally like the Hunger Games. You’re assigned an enrollment date based on your year (seniors get to go first, then juniors, etc.) and at 8 am on that day, you refresh the website and either enroll in your classes or get placed on the wait list for it. If you’re a freshman, you’re basically screwed because you go last, and so you could have planned out your perfect schedule only to find they’ve all filled up the day before your enrollment period starts. To avoid having to scramble, have multiple versions of your schedule, with back ups and substitutions for every class. This way, you won’t be surprised when you go to enroll and all but one of your classes are filled, then you have to search for other classes, but at that point, all that’s left are scraps that don’t fit your requirements. Plan plan plan and practice clicking the enroll button on all your classes as fast as you can for when the clock strikes 8.

You have freedom over your schedule now; take advantage of that! No more 8-3 Monday through Friday; you can take classes whenever you want. I prefer to have all my classes on MWF in a block of a few hours and only one or no class on TR. Of course, sometimes you’re going to have to take classes at less optimal times, but do try to accommodate yourself and take classes at times you know will be good for you. Lots of people prefer to start early and finish early, while I like to start no earlier than 11, even if I don’t finish until 5. The best part of college is you can do what you want.

Don’t take 8 ams. I’m repeating this cause it’s important. I swear, you’ll regret it. In high school, I woke up every morning early as hell to catch my bus at 6:30, but in college, it was nearly impossible for me to get up for my 11 am only three times a week. Don’t ever take an 8 am by choice. And if you have no choice, good luck lol.

Don’t be afraid to drop a class. If you’re doing terribly in a class or you absolutely can’t stand it, drop the class. There’s a very little chance that if you’re failing during the first half of the semester, you’ll be able to change your grade dramatically in the second half. Maybe you decided to be an overzealous freshman and signed up for the maximum number of hours possible and now you’re drowning. Drop a class! Sometimes, a course is going to do more harm to you than good, so it’s best to get rid of it than have an F or a W on your transcript.

Attending Your Classes

Establish a connection with your professor early. I recommended introducing yourself on the first day of class just so they know your name and face in another post. It’d be even better to attend an office hour or review session or something. Just make sure they know you. It’ll be easier to communicate when you need something later in the semester if it isn’t their first time seeing you.

Actually use this connection with your professors. In my experience, they can be pretty understanding and when you’re in a bad place, they’ll likely help you out. If something is preventing you from doing your best in class, go to them for help (I didn’t go to many office hours but I wish I did! Who better to explain to you something you don’t understand than the person who grades you on it?) or explain to them your situation. I had professors let me take tests late and redo assignments due to my mental health after I explained to them I wasn’t just a terrible student; if it wasn’t for this, I would’ve failed all of their classes. Maybe at the end of the semester they’ll drop one of your wonky grades or bump you up that extra half point you need. Your professors are a resource, and it’s up to you to use it.

Take notes however you want. I used my laptop in some, paper in others, and even my iPad and a stylus for calculus. In all of your classes will be a mixture of different techniques and no one cares what you do. Whatever works best for you and helps you get down the most information is what you should do. Also, you don’t have to write down everything. If your professor uses slides and posts them for you to download, you don’t really have to write down anything at all unless they add extra points, so that’s really convenient. 

You don’t have to sit in the front. As long as you can see and hear, which you’ll likely be able to due to large projection screens and microphones, it literally doesn’t matter where you sit. In my experience, the professors call on people from every part of the lecture hall, so everyone gets an equal chance at participation. It’s up to yourself to make sure you can pay attention, not your seat.

Do your best to attend every single class meeting. It’s inevitable that you’re going to miss class at some point; you will get sick, you won’t have finished an assignment, you’ll need a mental health day, something will happen. Missing class can too easily become a habit if you do it often, so try to never do it. Don’t force yourself to go if you can’t handle it, obviously your health always comes first, but I mean don’t skip cause you want to sleep in or cause you just don’t feel like going. If you do have to miss class and 1) you have a good reason for it (i.e. sickness) and 2) it’s a class small enough that your professor will notice you’re not there, email them and let them know why, just so they’re aware you’re not just skipping to skip.  

Try to make friends in your classes. A little study group would be even better. It’ll be really useful to have someone who can help you with a homework question you don’t understand or send you their notes when you miss a class. It can also be great to study with other people, depending on how you study best. I’ve had friends in all my classes so far and it’s been a great help, even if we just complained about the test we just failed then went to get pizza.

Tackling the Coursework

Make a REALISTIC study schedule. The key word here is realistic. During winter break I made a study schedule that started with me waking up at 8 am every morning to go work out and ended with me going to sleep promptly at 11 or midnight after spending literally the entire day studying with breaks only for meals. No breaks on weekends, no room to socialize, and I thought this would be perfectly fine for me to follow. Of course, I didn’t last a week because that was fucking ridiculous. You don’t need to schedule every hour of your day; college doesn’t work like that. Just do something simple, an hour for a class or maybe less depending on how hard it is and if you have a test coming up. Trust your instincts. There’s no need to go overboard, and you don’t need to spend six hours a day working, just dedicate a time to studying and stick with that.

Explore study techniques until you find one that works for you. Everyone doesn’t study the same, so if you do what everyone else is doing you might not get the results you want. Even if you had a great system in high school, it might not be fitting for college, so check out a bunch of different methods and see how you do with them. Once you find the best way you study, you’ll be unstoppable when exam time comes.

Start your assignments early, as soon as you can after they’re assigned. There’s nothing worse than having a bunch of assignments/tests/papers due on the same day and you haven’t finished any of them. Trust me, it is so much less stressful to complete an assignment as soon as you can after it’s been assigned so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Putting things off has much more severe consequences than it did in high school and you will regret procrastinating. If you have a weekly assignment due every Friday, try to complete them by Wednesday every week. At the very least, start an assignment the day you get it even if you can’t finish it that day. It’s a lot easier to do something after you’ve already begun working on it, and that one thing you do is progress.

The name of the college game is prioritization. If college teaches you anything, it’s how to prioritize your duties. You need to create a hierarchy of importance for your classes and types of assignments. For me, calculus assignments were always done first because that was the most difficult class and the one I absolutely needed to pass, and Italian was always done last cause it was my easiest class and I could complete even our biggest assignments in one day. You’re going to have a very large amount of work and sometimes you have to sacrifice finishing a small homework assignment to finish a huge paper or study for an exam. I liked to complete my hardest/longest assignments right when I got back from class to get them over with and leave my easier ones for later. Prioritizing is essential if you want to succeed in university, so learn how to do it immediately! 

Remember that uni is really difficult and your grades don’t define you. Something I learned the hard way is that sometimes you can try really really hard, do the best you can, and still fail. That’s just life. Sometimes you have to do something a million times before you get it right, or before you discover that it just isn’t right for you at all. I worked harder than I ever had this past year, and what I got in return was two failed classes, two D’s, academic probation, and a 2.3 GPA. Actually, my current GPA isn’t even a 2.3, it’s a 2.295, which is probably blasphemy to the studyblr community, but this shit happens. It happens to all of us and it sucks. It can be really shitty to feel like your effort wasn’t reflected in your result. What you need to do is adjust your expectations and keep working hard. After you hit your stride, your grades could be great in no time. Or you could discover that math or science or english just isn’t for you. Maybe you’ll discover university as a whole isn’t right for you, and that’s okay! Bad grades, whether you define that as a B or an F, don’t mean you’re a bad student or a bad person. You do what you can, and then let go of what you can’t control. The sooner you grasp this idea, and the sooner you learn to be gentle with yourself, the easier a time you’ll have.

So I feel like I forgot a lot of things but also this is pretty long so I’m going to end the post here. If you have any further questions or topics for a post you’d like to see, my inbox is always open. I don’t know which post is coming next, but I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for reading and I hope this helped you out!

When you guys have visited potential apartments, what kind of questions did you ask besides the basics like what rent and utilities include?

In case no one told you growing up

dlanadhz:

Many wonderful additions have been posted in the reblogs if you care to look through them (the post would be a giant if I added them all, plus I don’t see them all myself).

An anon asked me for a version of this specifically for feminine hygiene. You can see it here.

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Bras last longer if you let them air dry. Don’t put them in the dryer.

If you have a problem with frizzy hair, don’t dry your hair with a towel. It makes the frizzies worse. (I recently read an article that said to use a t-shirt? I brush mine out and let it air dry.)

Whites wash best in hot water. Everything else can be in cold - save on your electricity bill.

You can kill 99.9% of germs in a sponge by putting it in the dishwasher for a cycle or by microwaving it for 2 min (be sure to make the sponge damp before microwaving and to put a cup half full of water in with it and please DO NOT squeeze the sponge until it has cooled off)

Airing out your room/house and letting sunlight in every so often can decrease the number of household pests like silverfish and ants.

Black underwear is best during your period as stains are less likely to be visible.

To save money, put aside 10% of each paycheck into a savings account. It’ll add up.

Unless your hair has something on/in it (like grease or mud or something), using conditioner first can actually be the better choice. The conditioner holds in the good oils that help you hair look sleek and beautiful, which shampoo would otherwise wash away.

Speaking of shampoo - if you have long hair, washing just the bits that touch your scalp is generally enough. The rest of your hair gets cleaned with just the run off from your scalp.

If you put a tampon in and it’s uncomfortable/you can feel it, you didn’t do it quite right. A properly placed tampon is virtually unnoticeable by the wearer.

Apply deodorant/antiperspirant a couple hours in advanced of when you need it. This gives the product the chance to block your sweat glands. Using deodorant just before going somewhere where you’ll sweat (this means walking outside for people in high humidity places) results in your sweat washing the deodorant off and starkly limiting its usefulness.

After running the dryer, use the dryer sheet from that load to brush out the lint catch - it gets everything off in a fraction of the time it’ll take you to get it clean with your bare hands. Paper towels also work well.

Wash your face everyday, or as often as possible. Forget which brand of cleanser is best. Just washing your face everyday will guarantee you clearer skin. And do you best not to pop pimples, as tempting as the urge may be.

Fold laundry asap after taking it from the dryer to avoid wrinkles. This may seem obvious for dress shirts and silly for things like t-shirts, but you’ll notice the difference even then once your shirts stop looking like unfolded paper balls.

university tips

*from someone that survived her own first year of university

university is SO different from high school; a brilliant student in high school can be just a mediocre university student, and this is simply how it is when people from all over the country come together in a class. 

so it is okay to stress, but only if afterwards you’re just trying your best! it doesn’t matter how much you already know (though it helps), but how willing you are to learn! so, really, if you want to be there, you can make it!

make sure you eat properly; after a while, your body will start feeling gross and it’ll eventually show in your capacity to do your work. go out, buy that extra meat, extra salads, extra fruits, at least every once in a while. it’s not luxury, it’s a need

go the extra mile. no matter how optional a task may be or how tongue-tied you feel on a particular day, put yourself out there. write that essay, do that projects, speak about your ideas. your teachers really appreciate it when they ask for interractions from students and they provide, and it’s nice to have your teacher know you by face and by actions. it might prove useful when they’re grading you during the finals as well.

go to all (most) of your classes, no matter how optional the attendace is or how little you understand on the moment. in the long run, it will matter, and it’s super helpful to complete all your materials with the extra knowledge you got from the class. and no one and nothing will truly replace a teacher’s explanation.

try to make friends with those around you; most are probably just as lost and lonely as you are and it’s good to have people around you who can motivate you when you’re done or with whom to simply share the struggles of getting an education. sure, not everyone will like you, but those that will, make sure they can stick.

get involved in all the extra programmes that you’re interested in! you’re young and a student once! these opportunities are mostly a once in your lifetime thing! get out there and try everything: go to that book club, get your ass for the cinephile gathering, sign up for exchange programs, help out your teachers with their projects, do volunteer work! whatever floats your boat, but just do it!

also keep your eyes wide open to catch all the interesting lectures happening in your school. check those posters, check those subjects, check those dates and go. most of the times, you’ll leave knowing much more and having something to think on.

do your reading and assignments ahead of time! you don’t want it to be 2 dayss before your first exam, and you still have to finish essays and books.

the library really is your best friend! either as a study place or alternative to spending all your money on the source materials for your homework.

tidy up at least once a week; as school materials will start pile up, it will be harder and harder to find anything and you’ll only just end up frustrated

no one knows you better than you do, so make sure to take only the amount of work you know you can do. it’s okay if you want to keep your first year as free as you can, so you have time to acommodate, and just as okay it is to try all the available classes if you can. 

keep your facebook name your real one so people can find you. make sure you’re in every possible group within the first week of university, so you know what’s going on. use said facebook groups to ask about teachers and classes, or find offers on used textbooks that are much cheaper than if you would have bought them yourself.

talk with the upperclassmen if you have questions, or simply for tips! really, it tickles our ego to have people actually interested in the experiences we have to share and most of us are more than happy to clear any misunderstandings or help you guys get a classroom right.

carry pills and proteine bars with you, especially if you spend a long time away from home! you never know when pain or hunger hits you, and it is better to be prepared than sorry. 

it became a running joke at this point, i know, but right during the exam period you’ll want to do everything you haven’t done ever. so make sure you nurture your hobbies as well as your studies, and hopefully your interests are not too time consuming or at least require frequent/long breaks.

literally no one cares about how you look; so wear that make-up and nice clothes if you feel up for it, but if you don’t, that’s fine as well.

it will be done in the blink of an eye. so be true to yourself and your wishes, enjoy what you’re studying and, remember, you can do it!

Hoe Tips: School and Studying

I’m currently in PA school with close to a 4.0 GPA, and with college and back to school starting up, I’m dropping some tips for y'all. A hoe gotta get bomb ass grades if ya want a bomb ass career and to be successful af. So let’s get it✨

1. Write out your notes. Have two notebooks: one for when you’re in class (this one can be messy) and one for at home (this one is the neater one, for color coding, formatting, and all that organizational jazz). Writing things out is proven to enhance memorization 7X more than just reading is.

2. Have a go-to format for your notes. Numbering, bullet points, whatever floats your boat.

3. Type out your notes. I use Google Drive, because it automatically saves all your shit, and you can access your notes via your Google account literally anywhere. Typing out your notes does the same thing writing them out does, as far as helping you review the material.

4. Use Quizlet. Quizlet is a free flashcard website/app that allows you to type in all of your flashcards and definitions, and gives you review options like matching, testing, flashcard mode, and more. This shit made me my high schools valedictorian, no lie.

5. Keep your old quizzes and tests. Often times, teachers will ask similar questions on finals.

6. For math-based subjects, always always always show your work in your notes. I try to explain each step for a math problem in the margins of my notes, and generalize how to do each problem at the end.

7. Do practice problems consistently.

8. For my college hoes: never take an 8 am class. You think you can do it because you did it for high school, but I promise you will regret it. If there’s no avoiding the 8 am lecture, bring coffee and skip any makeup/hair that day. Sleep is too important.

9. Make flashcards. The night before my exams, I like to try and fit everything I need to know for a specific chapter/topic onto one flashcard, in order to weed out main ideas.

10. For essays, easybib.com is amazing with free citations to avoid any plaigiarism or incorrect bibliographies.

11. Rent👏your👏textbooks👏. Unless your teacher specifically requires you BUY it, you likely won’t need the actual textbook. Buying access codes for the book online is hundreds of dollars cheaper.

12. If you do get your textbooks, a lot of them have chapter summaries at the end of each chapter. Be sure to write out/type out/review those summaries.

13. For science labs, if you are allowed, take pictures of any models or slides you need to know for your exams. Pretty much all labs won’t let you take pictures of cadavers or animal dissections, but plastic models and microscope slides should be fine.

14. If you have a question, ASK YOUR TEACHER. It is better to look stupid in class and get your clarification, than to look stupid when you get your exam back and actually have it count against your grade.

15. Do study groups. I have two nursing friends in some of the same classes as me, and we’d always meet up before exams to go over the material. We would bring dry erase markers and map out shit in empty classrooms, taking turns explaining shit to each other until we nailed it.

16. Try to teach the material. Like I said in #15, study groups are great for this. By teaching the material out loud, you are subconsciously reviewing it yourself. This is a HUGE help.

17. Take breaks. You cannot exhaust yourself and expect to still recall anything you learned.

18. I know everyone does this and there’s no avoiding it sometimes, but DO NOT CRAM. Gradual learning is most effective.

19. Have one day every week where you don’t do any schoolwork. You need time to reboot.

20. Use your phone’s calendar/task checklist app for all major assignments, due dates, exam dates, study plans, appointments, etc. Set reminders as needed.

21. Charge your phone in another room while studying. No distractions.

22. Rainymood.com is a free website that plays a 30 minute loop of rain sounds. It helps me focus like nothing else, especially in my loud ass household, and every time the loop stops and replays, I know to take a break between 30 minute study sessions.

23. Feel distracted at home when studying? Try studying in a library, cafe, or even at school. I find that going somewhere else to study actually forces me to pay attention to what I’m doing, for some reason.

24. Reward yourself for good grades. Buy yourself a slice of pizza or a new highlight, have a netflix marathon, go to a party, or take a nap. Whatever conveys a job well done, do it. It’ll make all that studying feel that much greater when it’s over, and you’ll have a goal to work towards.

25. Sit in the front of the classroom as often as possible. You’ll be forced to pay attention, be able to actually see the board, hear the instructor better, and you’re more likely to have your questions answered quickly because your teacher will actually see your hand go up.

26. Caffeinate. I prefer tea because it’s healthier, but coffee works too. Ya girl is NOT a morning person, but my morning tea at least helps me pay attention during earlier classes.

27. Keep all of your school shit organized, together, and labelled.

28. Do NOT skip a class just because you’re lazy or don’t feel like going. The temptation is real sometimes, but a hoes gonna be pissed when ya see your participation average decline.

29. This may just be a psychological thing, but I love to use the same colored/brand of pen for all of my notes/assignments/tests. It just makes everything seem more uniform, and I’m able to recall information better.

30. Trouble taking tests? For any multiple choice question, read the question and try to answer it first without reading any of the options. If your answer doesn’t match the options, then use process of elimination to find the best answer. For true/false questions, write out justifications for each answer (you can also do this for multiple choice). You’ll be acing your exams in no time.

31. Chewing gum during class/studying, and chewing that same flavor gum during the exam, has been scientifically proven to boost your memory recall.

32. Literally any time you have the opportunity to do extra credit, DO IT. Cherish that shit.

33. If you aren’t doing so hot in a particular class (literally any math class for me lol), schedule a private meeting with your professor and go over test questions you missed, or topics you didn’t get. If you know your professor is a flop, or can’t get an appointment, meet with a tutor or another professor of that same subject. Sometimes another voice can shed new light on a difficult topic.

34. For essays, readable.io critiques your writing for free based on readability, grade level, formality, tone, grammatical errors, etc. Seriously a life saver.

35. Also thesaurus.com is ya bff for fancier words/phrases to make your writing more eloquent

36. Always make an outline for every essay or project to organize what you want to say. This will keep you on track, and help you work around any quotes or sources in you writing to make sure your writing is hella organized.

That’s all I can think of for now, please please please feel free to add and share. Enjoy those 4.0’s, hoes💞