Tag Archives: graduation tips

April 13, 2010

Graduation Year Tips for Seniors – Part 2: Networking

Keeping in touch with friends and colleagues can be a very tricky task for graduating seniors.  Think back to high school and all of your friends who went to different colleges or did their own thing after.  Now these might have been the pre-twitter or even pre-facebook days for some, but keeping in touch was still a huge challenge.

Fast forward to present day and now think of college.  The contacts you’ve made over the past 4 or 5 years can go a long way and may be valuable to you in your professional and social life, and vice versa.  Keep in touch with these people and continually grow your network (side note: if you are interested in networking, check out the book “Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi).  That said, today’s online and good ol’ fashion tools and techniques make it easier than ever to stay in touch.  Here’s 3 simple tips on how to do so and continually build that bridge rather than breaking it.

1) Filter through the noise, be different!  Facebook wall posts, messages, and event invites often get overlooked.  Filter through thenoise when keeping in touch or reaching out to friends.  A personalized email, a twitter DM, gasp… or even a hand written letter go such a long ways!

2) Sign-up for linkedin.com.  Your friends may have contacts you may need, you may have some they may need.  Best way to reach out to these people?  LinkedIn.  No need for these people to see your keg stand photos and party days of college.  Stay in touch on this professional platform and move your career forward!

3) Collect non-school email addresses.  Your email is likely to expire a year or 2 after you graduate.  Grab personal emails, gmails, or yahoo! mails.

Hope these were of help!

April 7, 2010

Graduation Year Tips for Seniors – Part 1 – Making Cash

The final months of college can be very stressful. When mixing in classes, a senior thesis, job applications, grad school apps, work and vacation plans, it can feel as if you are taking on more than you can chew. While reports are showing more and more college students moving home after college (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-10-cover-kids_x.htm ), the transition from college to the “real world” can still be a big step financially. You have graduation costs (cap, gowns, graduation stoles, invitations, parties), moving costs (moving companies, gas, U-Hauls), relocation costs (repurchasing furniture, signing leases, security deposits), and much more.
With costs adding up, why not make some extra cash on the things you no longer need or are likely to throw away? The key to making the most possible is timing though!

Here’s 4 tips on how to make a few extra bucks the quick and dirty (honest) way with all the goods you’ve acquired over the past 4 or 5 years.

1) Sell Your Books: Sell off the books you no longer need. List them on Amazon.com or Half.com. Unless you’re planning on taking them home with you after college, get rid of them. Chances are most graduating seniors end up donating them or selling them to the local bookstore, where in each case you get less money than you might have if you sold it online.
2) Sell Your Furniture: Everything goes! Think of those old garage sales where you use to setup a lemonade stand and bartered with strangers trying to buy your swag. Start selling your furniture. If you live in a fraternity or sorority house, consider doing a “house garage sale.” Keep the cash, or donate it to the chapter, eitherway you win! Big Tip: Don’t wait for the mad last week dash to post your items on craigslist or try to run a garage sale. With the hundreds of other students doing the same thing, you lose the batter of supply and demand and will probably not get as great of a price. Whatever you don’t plan on bringing with you out of college, consider selling!
Here’s a few ideas: Bookshelfs, Desk & Chairs (though you may want these one for finals), Extra TVs, Game Consoles, TV Stands, Kitchenware, Bed Frames, Extra Mirrors, Futons & Bean Bags.
3) Selling Your Clothes: Do you really plan on bringing your entire wardrobe home? That shirt you bought for the Jersey Shore themed party, are you really going to wear it again? Or the boots from Halloween 2008? Sell it and make some cash back! With craigslist if you organize your post well you can probably sell your stuff by the bag and get rid of it all at once.

4) Sell Stuff For Your Friends: Is your friend trying to offload his TV to someone else, or are they trying to get rid of their desk already? Offer to sell it for them if you get 25% of the profits.
There’s numerous ways to make some extra cash, be creative, and most importantly… have fun, because it’s college!

photo credit Tostie14

April 10, 2009

Graduation Tip: Watch Your Spending!

Today’s graduation tips moves away from the classroom and more to everyday life.  In your last semester at college, your spending may get a little out of control:

  • Weekend Leisure Expenses
  • Grad School Applications
  • Graduation Photos
  • Graduation Apparel (Stoles, Gowns, Invitations, etc.)
  • Moving expenses

If you are currently working, hopefully these added expenses will not hurt you too much, but its important to keep track of money coming in and money leaving.

Be sure to budget out everything, as the last thing you’ll want to do is get into debt when entering the real world.
A great financial blog that we’d highly recommend is Get Rich Slowly.  If you’re not really a blog research/reading type of person and prefer a book in your hand, check out the recommendations of the top 25 finance books available.

April 7, 2009

Graduation Tip: Talk To Your TA

This is the first of hopefully many in a series of graduation tips for seniors planning on graduating this year.  While the focus will be on seniors, we’re sure most of these tips can be used by students in any grade level.

Today’s post focuses on teaching assistants, one of the most under utilized yet useful resources a student can have.  Teaching assistants often hold the answer to tests before they are administered, control grades for their students, and can write a mean letter of recommendation when needed.

Here are 3 major reasons why you SHOULD talk to your teaching assistant:

Project Extensions:

It’s easier to ask for an extension on a paper or project once you’ve built genuine rapport with your TA.  Most won’t mind and will be friendly to extensions.  They’ve been through college, they know stuff comes up, and well… they’ll be backlogged with other students’ papers already, so what’s an extra day to them?

They Grade You:

In a lecture hall of 300+ students, they are the ones giving you grades and directly deciding if you made the A- or B+ cut.  Get to know your TA, understand what he or she is looking for in papers and projects, and what expectations they have for their students.  Spending 10 minutes a week talking to your TA could make or break your GPA for grad school, no joke.

Argue Grades:

Hopefully it does not come to this, but if you are borderline between one grade or another, knowing your TA will make it that much easier to argue for the higher grade.  I think it goes without saying, they will be more lenient and willing to negotiate your grade if you had attended office hours all semester.