Finance 101 - Saving Some Extra Dough

College students always have a need for extra money. Its not easy to save money when your friends call you up Thursday night for a party or invite you to a birthday bash. Food, alcohol, gas, cover fees, etc. – they all add up in cost. Nevertheless there’s always a way to get the best bang for your buck. While you might not think about it, little things can add up quite quickly to huge savings.

Getting a good rewards credit card can help you out. Most credit card rewards programs don’t charge a dime to join like Chase Freedom, it offers 1% cash back on all purchases and 3% on gasoline, groceries, and fast foods. While 1% might not seem like a lot, big ticket items and cumulative purchases can bring in a nifty chunk of change. If you travel considerably, you might consider a rewards card for frequent flier miles, since flying with a certain airline can add up to free tickets or cash back. If you are having trouble looking for a good type of rewards card, checkout the forums on Fatwallet.com for in-depth deal discussions.

Another way to save some extra cash is to setup a savings or checking account online. While most local banks offer a few percent yearly interest on your money, online banking such as with Charles Schwab, HSBC, and INGDIRECT can offer higher rates of interest since they don’t have all the capital fees that a walk-in bank might have. At HSBCdirect.com you can have a savings account for 5% yearly interest (one of the highest around) just by having your money sit in the account. Other banks might require you to put your money into a CD account to get that kind of interest, but with HSBC you can have your money liquid and available at the nearest ATM without any penalties that a CD account might entail. Also, online checking with CharlesSchwab.com or FirstRepublic.com can offer no surcharge withdrawls from any ATM around the world. Particularly in tourist destinations like Las Vegas, ATM fees can head up to $5 or $6 just to use their machine. With those accounts, you can use any ATM in sight for free.

Finally, shopping at warehouses selling items at bulk prices such as Costco can add up to some significant savings. Places like Costco may require membership to purchase, but if your parents or friends have cards, you can easily tag along as long as one person has a card. Ground beef, frozen foods, snacks, and party supplies can easily be purchased in bulk – particularly if you’re looking to split between roommates. Savings can range from 10%– 30% off local supermarket prices, so shopping in bulk can add up quickly. Additionally, party supplies such as plastic cups, disposable plates and utensils, beer, wine, and hard alcohol can be purchased for a discount.

Living Frugally – Your Home Away from Home

Though some students are lucky enough to stay in their dorm during their entire stay in college, some of them, including me, must venture out and go and find a new dwelling off campus. Living off campus can get quite expensive, but with some money saving tips it can be manageable.

Apartment searching itself can be a major task and incorporates a number of different variables such as distance from campus, local neighborhood, and the age of the apartment. Once you figure out your budget you can go and find the right apartment for you. One way to keep your costs down is sharing an apartment with a number of roommates. The more roommates you have may lower the price you pay per month, but it increases the likelihood of creating an unstable living situation as people feel the need to have more space.

Now that you found the perfect apartment it’s time to fill it up with furniture. Many stores such as Target and Walmart come out with back to school ads with the perfectly furnished room. I personally have never seen any college apartment room look the way they do in catalogs and unless you are independently wealthy, it’s not worth it to spend that much money on your room. One good cost saving way to furnish your apartment is just taking hand me downs from family and friends. What can be better than free furniture! While we’re still on the topic of free furniture, one of the best ways to add to your apartment is staking out the dumpster areas around the summer time. Many students who move out and don’t want to take furniture with them will leave them out at the dumpsters and are basically up for grabs. Not all of the furniture is old and dingy and you can sometimes score some pretty nice furniture at no cost to you.

Depending on your distance from school, biking or walking to school is the most economical form of transportation. Though I did live within biking distance of campus I chose to drive instead, which added to my costs and didn’t provide me a good form of exercise. If biking isn’t your cup of tea, public transportation might just be the key. Many universities provide “free” public buses to and from campus. I say “free” since the costs of maintaining a bus fleet and paying drivers is incorporated in the cost of your tuition. Don’t let your tuition money go to waste and help reduce your carbon footprint.

Another great way to save money is controlling the way you use your utilities in your apartment. My college was located in an area that is similar to many parts of the US; hot summers and cold winters. By restricting the amount of heat or A/C you use during different seasons will greatly lower your bills at the end of the month. I personally can not stand the summer heat, especially when I’m trying to sleep, so I always need to use the A/C during the summer. In order to offset the cost, I decided not to use the heater at all during the winter months. Though it never got cold enough to snow, it was still cold enough to require extra layers, but it did the trick. If you’re the opposite from me and can handle the heat then flip my strategy and you’ll be saving money too.

Career - Avoid Simple Mistakes

I have had the opportunity of helping my company recruit for entry level and internship positions at different colleges. Several months ago, I was invited to attend a career fair and talked to many interested undergraduates. Upon returning to the office and looking through my emails, I came upon one that made me understand why recruiters don’t always respond back. This prospective student had emailed me about his interest in getting an internship with my company, but had gotten the company totally wrong. Even more frustrating was that I had remembered giving my business card to this student and it is quite obvious from my email address that I did not work for the company that was mistaken for. Additionally, the student had made the worst mistake by misspelling the word "resume" on their file attachment.

Now I may seem harsh to this particular student, but in an ever increasingly competitive world, simple mistakes like that can end your dreams short. Always spell check your resume, cover letter, and email message before sending it out to a recruiter. It only takes a couple of minutes to do and can save you from ending up in the "do not hire" list.

The source of this student’s mistake was using a template email. Template emails are by far, the worse way to contact a recruiter about your interest and can easily be identified. Instead, write separate emails designed around the needs of the positions you are interested- it'll add a personal touch.

By avoiding simple mistakes, this prospective student would have had their resume forwarded to human resources and most likely would have gotten an interview slot. Let this be a lesson towards taking a small amount of time to avoid a long term problem.

Career - Job Searching Resources

A day of web browsing lead me to a nifty social networking site that has compiled a list of online job searching and career development sites. If you are currently looking for a job or are anticipating doing so I would suggest having a look. It has all the traditional site such as careerbuilder and monster but it also has job search engines that are specific to certain industries and regions such as technical jobs in Europe.

70+ Tools For Job Hunting 2.0 [Mashable]

Choices - 4 Years or 5 Years

I already knew before I started college that I was going to take the 5 year route. My main reason was due to my engineering major and also being financially sound enough to not worry about paying for college. I could have probably finished in less time, but knowing that I could graduate in 5 years allowed me to fit in internships, balance out my work load, and re-take classes I had failed. If you’re wondering whether it is worth graduating sooner and getting into the work force, there are a couple things to consider.

As the price of tuition increases every quarter/semester it is harder and harder to justify staying in school any longer than needed. Unless you are forced to stay longer because you have to re-take classes, I would suggest trying to get into the work force as soon as you can. The more work experience you can gain, the faster it will help towards a promotion, salary increase, and extra vacation time. The only situation that bears some thought is getting an offer for an internship that will extend your stay at college an extra quarter/semester. Even though your internship may not pay enough to cover a quarter/semester of school, it will pay dividends forward as a resume building experience. Having that internship under your belt will help with your job search and give you leverage during offer negotiations.

For those you who have the time and money and are looking to graduate in 4.5 years, I would suggest staying for that last part of the year and enjoying the college life. Take a fun class you couldn’t fit in during the school year or work on getting a research paper published. Whatever it might be, it will be a nice break before you enter the real world and realize how wonderful it was being in college.

Finance 101 - Debt

What I find shocking is the high percentage of students that are in debt before even graduating from college. Granted that everyone’s financial situation is different, but being in debt can have immense consequences. Being habitually late paying credit card bills or paying just the bare minimum will have a detrimental effect on your credit score. Thinking about buying a car and getting a car loan with a low interest rate? Think again. Your credit score is an important aspect for any financial institution reviewing a loan application. Having a low credit score will either force you into a high interest loan, which could price you out of the car you had in mind, or even worse, getting your loan denied.

Not only will debt damage your credit score, but it also increases the amount you have to spend on a purchase. As an example, you decide to buy a nice flat screen TV for $2,000. When that credit card bill comes you figure that you can get away with just paying the minimum , sometimes as low as 20 dollars. You just made your credit card company very happy. The next time your credit card bill comes you’ll notice that they’ve put on an interest charge of 6% to even as high as 14%. That TV you bought is now costing you a possible 300 dollars more than you had initially paid for.

What’s the best way to start paying off your debt and making some ground on your credit score? Cut up your credit cards. Paying with a check card is a much safer way to control your spending and will help ease the amount that appears on your statements each month. Look at your paychecks each month and partition an amount to decrease your credit card bill. If you don’t even have a paycheck to help you out then you probably shouldn’t have been spending money in the first place. The credit line that your credit card company gives you is basically a loan so you don't have to carry a wad of cash around with you and assumes that you'll pay back every penny every month. If you can't pay them back, don't spend the money. If the temptation is just to large then going cold turkey by cutting up your credit cards is the only way to stave off your addiction and protecting your credit score. As a young budding professional in college who doesn't have a stable income, it is better to not have a credit card than having a credit card with debt.

The Black Spiral

My freshman year could be compared to that of an academic train wreck spiraling out of control. The biggest mistake I made when I received my first letter notifying me of my Academic Probation status was being apathetic. At the time, I felt it was just a bump in the road and something that I could dig myself out. Oh how I was wrong. I never changed my habits and figured that being kicked out of school was nothing more than a far off nightmare. Little did I know that as the year progressed so did the difficulty in the classes. I spent most of my time hanging out with friends, spending countless hours playing Counter Strike, and studying at the last minute for midterms and finals. Soon enough I received my second letter notifying me I was again placed on Academic Probation.

A summer passed and I felt that starting a new school year would provide the motivation necessary to climb out of a large hole I had dug for myself. By the end of the fall quarter I received my third letter and this time I was placed on Academic Dismissal and was warned that if I did not keep my grades up I would be getting the boot. I was required to speak with an academic adviser from the Dean’s office and was given two options. I could either tough it out and risk being dismissed from the school or transfer out of the College of Engineering to another major providing me a contract so that I would not be dismissed for another 2 quarters to get my grades up. My academic adviser suggested the latter as my grades at the time suggested failure. My nightmare had finally arrived.

Getting out of Academic Dismissal status required me to finally realize that being kicked out of college would provide me a horrible future and humiliation for the rest of my life. Not being able to live with myself if I were dismissed, I changed my study habits and concentrated harder than ever to get the grades to get myself out. At the end of winter quarter I did not receive any letter and was found to be in good standing.

Don’t ever think that being on academic probation is just a small bump on the road of life. If you begin to be apathetic like I was by not changing your study habits and re prioritizing your life, you could end up spiraling out of control into a large black hole you won’t be able to get out of.

Career - Getting Your First Job

Many people that I have known found it difficult to pick up a job when they graduated from college. In retrospect, I don’t find that hard to believe. Without work experience, internships, and undergraduate research, it is difficult to present yourself purposefully in a resume when looking for the perfect job. So my advice to you – start early and don’t lose confidence.

When I was a Junior in college, I found it difficult to secure an internship for myself. I tried applying all over the place – mostly whatever I found on my college’s internship and career center webpage, however, much to no avail. I was fortunate to be invited to several interviews that seemed promising, but they never amounted to anything. I wanted to give up, but my aunt suggested that I apply for an internship position at her company. With her recommendation, I was able to secure a position as a food science intern. Although it was far from my engineering curriculum, I thought I might as well give it a shot. As it turns out, I enjoyed my experience away from engineering, being able to work from a non-technical perspective. I learned how to conduct myself within a corporate environment as well as becoming familiar with a 9 to 5 job.

As it turns out, my internship experience helped me get my current job at an environmental firm. Although seemingly irrelevant, I presented my perspective of learning to be highly detail oriented as well as being accountable to my work as an intern. Additionally, my internship experience gave me valuable prior work references that I was able to present at my interview.

When you are searching for an internship or on-campus job, find something that you enjoy and aim for that as your goal. If you aren’t able to obtain that yet, keep trying. Don’t expect to get everything the way you want easily. I had to send my resume to dozens of recruiters before I even heard back from one. If you’ve given a good attempt to get something you desire and still fail, don’t be afraid of taking a job out of your major field. Experience is a crucial tool that you can use to leverage yourself into a job that you really want. After all, its not like you have to stick with it forever. I was content enough with the extra pocket money and the right to claim I was paid to eat.

Career - Getting Experience at School

Regardless of where everyone wants to end up after college, whether it is an advanced degree from graduate school or joining the rank and file of the working world, you’ll need to get some relevant experience. What comes to mind when people hear, “Go get some job experience first”, are the prized summer internships. Those are great for someone who already have some prior experience, but what about for someone just starting out? You need no t look further than your own college campus.

To the untrained eye, colleges are just a place for students to attend lectures and professors to harass them with midterms and finals. In reality, colleges are bustling places of activity where teaching classes is just a small part of what they do. Most professors are also there to advance themselves through research and publishing papers. Granted that most of the help comes from their graduate students, but even they don’t like doing the small time grunt work required in research. This is where you come in.

Undergraduate research positions provide great opportunities to not only work one on one with graduate students and professors but to get some great job experience as well during the school year. Research positions can encompass anything from working at the lab bench making solutions to rolling out a survey to collect statistical information. Either way it will look good on your resume and will provide that difference that can set you apart.

So how can you get these great experience building positions? It can be as easy as asking your professor and showing interest in their research. Additionally most schools have a career center that helps fill research positions where needed throughout the campus. These however can be on a first come first serve basis and require a basic or advanced understanding of the research topic, so sign up early and study up before meeting the professor.

Dealing With Failure

Preparing for failure is not an expected requirement in college and tends to take many undergraduates by surprise. For many of you, high school was a breeze, where last minute studying for exams was more than enough to do well. Unfortunately, most high schools have failed students in regards to preparing them for college. For the average college student there will come a point, regardless of major, where failure is a reality.

I received my first failing grade on my first midterm of Chemistry and the panic started to set in. Not being accustomed to the reality of failure, I continued with my bad study habits and had to retake the class. I now realize that there were steps I could have taken to have prevented me from going down a troubled path.

Fist and foremost setting an appointment with your professor is an important step to take when doing poorly on a midterm. This gives you the chance to meet face to face with your professor and discuss the results of your exam. Always remember to review the exam answers in advance so that you have a several topics about the material you can concentrate on discussing. If your professor can see your concern and improvement in their class, there is a good chance that they will take that into account when giving a final grade.

One of the most important steps you can take to begin improving in your class is to attend your class’s office hours. Most TAs will take the time to explain the subject material and it will get you motivated to work harder on the material. Even though you may know the material on a certain subject, it is still beneficial to attend office hours as other students may bring up questions that you might not have thought about.

Now I know homework can be a drag and copying from a fellow classmate is the easy way to go. I can’t stress enough the importance of doing your own homework. More than likely you will run into questions where you may not have the slightest clue to answering and group work at that point is warranted. By attempting to do the homework on your own will help you build the foundation in terms of learning the material. If worse comes to worse you will always have the option of attending office hours.

Bouncing back from a failing grade in a class will not be an easy task, but I believe with determination and taking the steps I have mentioned will give you a much better chance of improving.

Health - Freshman 15

In college, weight gain is almost inevitable for most. I for one can testify that I became a victim of the dreaded Freshman 15. Here is a sample of a day’s worth of eating for me as a freshman:

Breakfast: Skipped due to sleeping in since I probably stayed up way too late the night before

Lunch: Dining commons, which usually consist of a meat course, chowder, salad drowning in ranch dressing, and a nice plate of french fries

Afternoon Snack: Ramen

Dinner: More starchy dining commons food consisting of soups, pastas, and more salad with ranch dressing

Midnight Snack: 5 tacos from the local drive in

I didn’t eat like this everyday, but consistently enough. That and not exercising, lead to a lot of weight gain. It didn’t get any better afterwards either and I eventually ended up gaining 40 pounds before I graduated. Now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with transitioning into the real world. Well more than likely most people will end up at a job where you are either sitting or standing for 8 hours a day. I do the latter. So how do you keep the weight off? Start early.

Forget what you’ve seen on TV ads about pills, portion control and exercise is truly the best way to stay in shape and keep the weight off. Now I know that getting into the habit of exercising can be a chore, but trust me, it works. I’ve recently began eating healthy again and working out and I’ve already seen the results. I’ve lost 5 pounds over a couple months. Nothing spectacular, but hey it’s a start.

What’s another easy way to keep the weight off? Stay away from soda. I have to admit that I am a huge fan of Coke, but making the decision to cut it out of my diet was a great one. It’s really nothing more than sugar, sugar, and more sugar. It adds no nutritional value and provides nothing but empty calories. What’s an alternative if you feel the thirst? Water. It has no calories, keeps you hydrated, and it’s free, which is always good in my book.

It's hard for most college students to wake up early to go to class let alone make time to eat breakfast. Breakfast though is probably the most important meal of the day as it will setup the rest of you day’s diet. No one said it has to be a sit down meal with eggs, sausage, and hash browns. It can be as simple as a muffin and tea or a bowl of cereal. It’ll help you start your metabolism for the day and make you less hungry for lunch. Plus you’ll have all sorts of energy to start the day off for your morning classes.

Start early and start now. You don’t want to end up like me trying to lose all that weight I could have kept off in the first place.

How High School Failed You

For those of you out there who are about to start your new college career, I have this to say: you don’t know how to study for college classes. Period. High school has never prepared students well enough for the rigors of college courses. Lectures are boring and the material is simple enough to start your studying the night before a test. Unfortunately, that’s not going to cut it in college. Here are five study tips that I feel will get you better prepared for a successful college career.

Studying with distractions isn’t really studying at all and the biggest distraction that all students have is their computer. Though some professors post studying material on the web, most of the time old fashioned reading and taking notes is all that is required. Even if your computer is turned off and it’s still a big temptation then I would suggest going to the library.

Now I know that professors are all different and some are just horrible lecturers. Regardless of this, reviewing your lecture notes every week is a great way to absorb material at a steady pace. Reading the text book along side your lecture notes can help round out the material and give you insight into what the professor may test on.

When it comes to studying for test always give yourself at least a week in advance to prepare for midterms. Seven days should be enough time to review lecture notes, textbook notes, old homework, and sample midterms. Keep in mind that sample midterms are never representative of the midterm you will be taking.

Though I didn’t learn this study tip until much later in my college career, doing your homework is actually the best way to understand any course material. Since homework is typically assigned once a week, it allows you to slowly absorb material. Copying your buddy’s homework is the easy route but when it comes to midterm time, your buddy is going to blow you away with their score.

The appeal of group studying is that two brains are always better than one. I do believe that group studying can help when everyone in the group doesn’t understand a certain problem. Unfortunately most study groups consist of people at varying levels of understanding and those at the lower end always seem to be left behind. Group studying can also be a distraction in itself and can hinder you since breaks become more frequent and socializing is inevitable. Study individually before venturing into a study group, this will give you a chance to catch up to speed and contribute productively.