There’s a lot of things you can get for free today that our parents wouldn’t have even dreamed of. In contrast with with they were in college, today’s technology and Internet speeds has opened the door to many possibilities. Free TV shows online, free newspapers online, free internet (e.g. at coffee shops like Starbucks, and other “hotspot” locations), free education, and our favorite, free samples at Pinkberry!

In a recent post from Lifehacker the author goes into 10 things that you can get for free. Be sure to check out the full post to see how you can take advantage of these goodies.

To summarize the post very quickly, cool things you should check out are:
A) Free Online Storage – Services such as Dropbox, Amazon Cloud and even Google Docs makes collaboration with other groups so simple now. The mistique of thumbdrives is slowly fading away as more people use these services which sync instantly with their smartphones and mobile devices as well.

B) Student Discounts – I personally did not take advantage of this while in school, but in retrospect should have gotten everything out of it before graduating! A lot of organizations offer student discounts. Did you know the national retail chain Banana Republic offers student discounts? Yep! Search for lots of details here on more discounts you could take advantage of.

C) eBooks – Free (and legal) books are accessible online and knowledge available at our finger tips. Take advantage of these, whether they are short books, how to guides, novels, or journals. Here’s a list of ebooks availble for download

Hope these were helpful! If you search a little more, we’re sure you can probably find great freebies for your birthday too.

Today’s blog post covers yet again one of our favorite blogs, the Unclutterer blog (is that even a word?)

In the blog post, the author speaks about how to best stay focused in an open office (a type of office with a more spacious architecture and fewer offices). He provides recommendations ranging from simply picking up and moving, to coming in early or wearing earphones (even when you’re not listening to music).

For us, and open office resembles working or living in a fraternity house or even studying with friends. Often times, it can be very difficult to get things done. I remember this one time back in sophomore year (far from graduation) when I lived with 7 of my closest friends. While we were not the biggest partiers, we did have fun, and lots of fun indeed. This often made it difficult to study when finals came around, and often times I would retreat to the local coffee shop or to the library.

So what are the key takeaways from this post? Is there anything applicable to students? Yes.

“Don’t call out to coworkers. Get up and walk over to someone if you need to speak with her, unless there is some kind of emergency where yelling is appropriate.”
The same would apply if you were at a library. Don’t disrupt everyone to communicate with one person. Imagine if everyone did this, how difficult it would be to study then?

“Come in early. If you know you have a big project on your schedule for the day, come in an hour or two before the rest of the office. No one will email you, call you, or even know you’re there working.”
Study later than everyone, or earlier! What if you could wake up and study before 80% of the student body was even up? Imagine how peaceful and productive the library would be.

and lastly… and our favorite recommendation:
“Pick up and move.”
At the end of the day you may have some great friends, but just not great study buddies. If you can’t get anything done with your friends studying near you, pick-up and move, or make plans to reconnect with them after everyone’s done studying.

In conclusion, if you’re having trouble studying. There’s many ways to fix it. Check out the full post at the Uncluterrer Blog Today.

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In this article on Frank Chimero’s Blog, Frank talks about how he sold his 27″ macbook in exchange for a macbook air.

The picture is cool in that if you really think about it, each item has a solid purpose and in theory would that be all a college student needs?

Let’s break this down:
A) Laptop – Self explanatory. The primary machine to browse facebook and youtube on, not to mention write and research papers.
B) iPad/ paper note pad – These items seem essential to take good notes in class and collaborate with team members.
C) Kindle – With the move of most textbook publishers to digital, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that a student can have all of his or her text books simply on a kindle now.
D) iPad Revisited – With apps such as Netflix, it’s possible to use this (or the computer) to catch up on your tv watching!
E) iPhone – The communication hub.
F) 1 charger for everything.

If given just these tools and forced to study in a coffee shop or library an entire semester, could you surive all the way to graduation? We think so!

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Where do you study? Is it in the library, in your room, at a secret spot on campus, or at the local coffee shop?

A recent article by The Atlantic details why working at a coffee shop can be very beneficial. They note that it is “Just Enough Distraction” to get things done, but not soo much that it’s overwhelming.

For me personally, I like studying at a coffee shop because it’s not freezing cold!  That + an iced caramel macchiato generally does the trick

Photo Credit