This semester I challenge you to achieve a level of excellence that you have never achieved before.  The goal is to achieve a level of excellence where people will be talking about what you have accomplished.  Your professors will be telling their colleagues how great a job you did, and how far you have come. And when you put this accomplishment on your resume or grad application it will cause you to stand out from all the other applicants.  Even you will grin at yourself and will be stunned at what you had accomplished.

Types of projects

Independent Research - No, this isn’t about writing a large report for the hell of it.  This is about discovering something new that no one else has.  This is about expanding your knowledge and that of the world.  You will need to have some sort of adviser, either officially or unofficially.  Don’t expect to be writing a graduate thesis, but publishing a paper wouldn’t be too far out there.

Go Beyond the Course – Maybe research isn’t your thing, but you want to become really really good at something.  If you are taking a computer science course, you could have the goal to become an excellent programmer and a fast programmer.  To get there you go above and beyond the rest of the class.  When they program one project, you do three.  When they only use Java, you use C++ and integrate an SQL database.

Advanced Writing – Another way to go beyond the course is to take a writing assignment and go beyond what is expected.  A course requires you to write a short story.  You quickly write the short story and then begin developing it into a novel.  Visiting the professor biweekly with a sample piece of your writing.

Reports – Sometimes a class requires you to write a report, for example an economic analysis report.  This is another assignment that you can go beyond the norm and really develop a report that is worthy of giving a CEO of a company or the president of the United States.  While the report may be somewhat fictional, act as if you are doing the report for real people and real business purposes.

Service Project – Organize a service project on campus.  For example, you could develop an organization that gets college students to go to the local elementary and high schools to help teach students, or tutor for free.  While service projects are great, sometimes they are misguided.  Just throwing money at a situation will not always improves it, and if it does it is only temporary.  So if you do a service project, make sure it is a project that will last for years and really tries to fix the source of the problem.

How to Achieve Excellence

Start the first week of school - So you may not know what project to do, but you can have some brainstorming sessions through out the week.  While brainstorming ask yourself these three questions:

1. What are you passionate about?
2. What skills do you currently have?
3. Where do you want to be in the future? And what type of project would allow you to achieve those goals?

Feedback -Make sure you have some way to receive feedback.  Either have a professor to talk to or a professional that is willing to help guide you and give feedback.

Don’t Go Solo - If you are new to doing big projects, maybe grab a friend or two to help you out.  Or if you do not have friends that are willing to help, ask around.  Tell people your plan and see if they or anyone they know would be willing to help out. But you should already have at least five people to help you.

Pace Yourself - Take your time.  Make a clear schedule.  Acting like the project must be completed in two weeks will end in a project that is mediocre, not excellent.  Going too quickly may even cause too much stress so you quickly give up.

What is Success? - You need to have a clear idea of what a success would be.  If you are working on research, success could be publishing the paper or presenting at a research conference.  If you are working on a service project, success may be 10 years later whenever there are visible results of what you did to improve the community.  (Even if success is 20 years away, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.)

What’s the Purpose?

Why would any student bother with all this extra work?  Well, if you are really into it, you may not see it as work.  Of course there are financial benefits such as scholarships and maybe a better job in the future; however, there are personal benefits.  Going to school is a time to learn about yourself and grow.  By doing one of these projects and achieving excellence, you will learn more about yourself than you would have just going to class for four years.  I have found that one of the greatest joys in life is pushing your limits, so go ahead and reach further than you can imagine.

Do you have any projects planned for this semester?  Do you plan to achieve a level of excellence?  Personally, I will be working on independent research and a website for artificial intelligence research.

The Geek

Photo by DeaPeaJay

Who?

While there are many definitions of a geek, the one you want is the tech geek.  He spends most of his time at a computer or tinkering with gadgets. He knows all of the new things that are coming out, and it get’s him excited.  Not only is he excited about the technology, he is also excited about telling everyone about it.  He’s probably a pirate, so don’t take any music or software from him if you are concerned about piracy.

Why you need him?

You need this guy to fix your computer, tell you how to work your new iPhone, and help you do projects where you need to do some techie stuff like make a video.  If you invite him over on occasion he will probably automatically go to your computer and do all those nice updates that you have been letting go for some time.

Be Careful

Make sure you get the right gal or girl.  Some “geeks” aren’t really geeks.  They pretend to be, and they will end up destroying your computer instead of fixing it.  The perfect geek will know how to fix your stuff, but they also will not go overboard and do things to your computer that you do not want them to.

The Writer

Photo by Caitlinator

Who?

This is the person who has written or is in the process of writing a book.  Not only are they a clever writer, they are quick and they have all the fundamentals down to a science.  Finding this person may not be easy.  Most writers don’t usually flaunt their writing about, especially when they are working on it.  Speech class is a good place to spot these guys out.

Why you need a writer?

Before you even think about turning in a paper, you take it to this person.  Since they are a fast writer, they will be able to quickly skim your paper and look for grammar mistakes and points that need improvement.  Doing this can easily turn your ‘B’ papers into ‘A’ papers.  And if your friend is good, he teach you how to write, so you don’t have to keep coming back to him.

Be Careful

You still have to write your papers, you can’t get someone to do them for you.  Perhaps you are not great with words, but make sure your ideas are solid.  When you go to your friend for help be able to express what you would like to say.  Also, don’t let the writer completely  redo your paper, make sure when you leave your friend that the paper still has the same exact points you wanted, just maybe written differently.

The Activist

Photo by .faramarz

Who?

Have you ever seen someone with a tremendous amount of passion for a social issue.  Someone passionate about child mortality, education, or the current events in Iran.  This person is extremely emotional and is not afraid to say their opinion.

Why an Activist?

Because you have a voice, you just have to use it.  An activist friend will know about all the political rallies and protests.  They will inform you of issues that you never knew about, and they tell you what you can do about it.

Be Careful

Don’t believe everything they say.  Sometimes an activist will become obsessed and they will search for anything and everything to complain about.  Also, there are many sides to an issue, and you need to do your own research to determine which side of the issue you are going to take.

The News Junkie

Photo by aloshbennett

Who?

You may not find just one news junkie, but will probably find multiple people who know the latest in different topics.  For example, you may find a politics junkie, a sports junkie, and a science junkie.

Why do you need to know the news?

The key with news is to delegate, so you are not spending hours every day just keeping up with the latest news.  Knowing what is going on in the world is extremely important.  Events can affect you in many ways; from work to your social life.

Be Careful

Learn your junkies bias.  The guy you are getting your political news from, make sure you know if he is a conservative or liberal.  Make sure you ask where they got the information from; therefore, if you need more information you can directly to the source.

Don’t become a junkie yourself.  If you have ever watched any 24-hour news station before, you probably know that a lot of news is propaganda and speculation.  Just pay attention to the facts, and formulate your own opinions.

The Partier

Photo by kylemac

Who?

Um… the guy that gets wasted 3 times every weekend.  Ok, or maybe he doesn’t even drink.  But still he seems to be at every party you have ever gone to.

Why a Partier?

Once you get done getting an ‘A’ on your paper, keeping up with the news, and writing your senator a letter; you may need to relax and have some fun.  Finding out what to do for the weekend shouldn’t be a difficult task.  A quick call to a friend should do it.  If you are not big on parties, make sure you have a handful of friends you can hang out with on a regular basis.

Be Careful

Moderation.  Make sure you balance your social life with the rest of your life.

Exceptionally Unique Individuals

You are going to meet a lot of people in college, and on occasion you will meet a person that just WOWs you.  These people are extremely gifted and have unique thoughts.  These are the people you learn from, they stretch your potential, and will carry you along in their success.  Latch on to these people and see where they will take you.

There’s only about 1 week until classes start back up, and before you head back for a productive semester there are a few things you should do.

Spend a Day With Friends

Make this a simple day with your friends.  It can be as simple as sitting at a coffee shop for the whole day and just talking.  This is for deep conversation.  Share your goals and ambitions.  And when I mean friends, I mean your true friends.  The ones you will still make an effort to talk to even when you are states away, this is not the same friend that you accept on facebook.

Spend A Day with your Family

Most people hate this one, but it’s an important one.  Your family has done a lot for you, and you need to show them you appreciate it.  Spend a day playing boardgames with your family, going out to get ice cream and just enjoy being with each other.  The purpose of this is to make sure you leave your family on good terms.  This will make life easier when you come home on breaks, and besides you may actually enjoy it.

Take Yourself on a Date

Now this is the important one.  Plan a day where you wake up about 8 am and you leave the house and don’t come back till it’s dark out.  The importance of this is for you to think.  You need to get your thoughts together before you head of to college.  While college is a place where you discover who you are, you still need to head to college with a bit of an idea of who you are.  How do you imagine your future? What can you do to achieve your goals?

But what do you do on this “date”?   Here are some suggestions:

• go out to eat: breakfast, lunch, and dinner
• spend sometime at the library just browsing
• walk around the nearest city
• go shopping (go in random shops that you normally would never go in)
• go watch a movie by yourself (Yes, there are people who do that. I am one of them.)
• If you are a musician like me, go to different music stores.  (I once took an adventure just to find a music store with a hammered dulcimer.  I just wanted to see one and play it.)
• Go to a museum
• Go to an orchestra concert (Not a rock concert, an orchestra concert.  Something that is relaxing.)

Just pick a place that you would love to go to, but you never made the time for it.  But a key part of this is that you are ALONE, no significant other, no friend (get rid of the cell phone if you can). Just you and your mind, nothing more nothing less.

While there are a lot of things you should be doing before heading back to school, these three things I find to be very important to my mental health.  They allow me to have a clear mind through out the semester.

Where would you take yourself on your date?

This is a guest post by Stefan Knapen from StudySuccessful.com, a site about how to study. Stefan is a Dutch graduated high school student who will join the University in September. His site is full with study hacks and random study knowledge.

One of the biggest fears in a full college class is asking questions to a teacher/professor. But is it really that hard? Is asking a normal question that tough for a university student? No it isn’t.

Why asking questions

First, let’s make the importance of asking questions clear, just in case you think: ‘well, let’s just don’t ask questions.’ If you don’t know something, and you say to yourself that you will look it up after class, you will forget it or you don’t find it. Let that be clear. Further, a question means a response, so you have an explanation on a subject from the teacher himself. He is an expert in that area, so you get a good answer. And he gives the answer in class, so you have visuals with it also! Asking questions is also a way to show you are interested in the subject, which means the teacher will know that you are putting effort in your education!

How to ask questions

What are we trying to reach here? A question, which is good enough to be considered a good question. It can’t be a stupid question, because your fellow students will laugh and you will be ashamed, which means your face will be red again! Another thing, it should be related to what the teacher is talking about, or your classmates will dislike you for interrupting the teachers story.

• Prepare your question. This means, write it down or say it in your head before you ask him. Does it look stupid? Is it related to the subject? Is it something you can look up in your textbook? If the answers are ‘no yes no’, you can ask the question.
• Be polite. Don’t ask your question right away. ‘So, that is some sort of relativity?’ That isn’t a good way of asking something. First raise your hand, begin your sentence with sir. ‘Sir, does this mean there is some sort of relativity?’ sounds much better, right?
• Listen to the answer, until the teacher is finished. I have seen it, classmates asked something, listened to the answer and began talking with someone else, while the teacher wasn’t even finished answering the question.
• Write things down. This is even better than just listening, write things down when the teachers is answering.
• Thank the teacher. ‘Alright, thank you sir.’ means a lot to teachers. They don’t get much gratitude from students, stand out of the crowd by a short thank you.

Now you know how to ask questions without looking stupid or annoying teachers/students! Any questions?

This post was written by Stefan from StudySuccessful.com, visit his site to read more!

If you want to finish your degree in four years, you will probably need to take a few summer courses.   There are differences between summer courses and regular courses.

Note that my university is small.  Classes are small; therefore, summer classes are even smaller.

Short Time Period

Summer classes do not last as long.  So you will be going through the material a lot quicker.  That is why it is sometimes better to save your easy courses for summer.  Good luck taking Calculus II over the summer.  Psychology 101 seems a lot easier.

Classes are more relaxed.

During the summer, professors seem to be more laid back.  Especially if the it is a small class.  Small classes tend to become more discussion type courses than lectures, which to me is always a bonus.

Picking Summer Courses

I have two perspectives on this.  One was mentioned above; take easy courses.  My other view is to take a course that will challenge you and that you will enjoy.  If you are a computer science major maybe take the course on artificial intelligence and really dive into it.  If it’s the only course you are taking you should be able to really focus on the course, and you will come out of it being a lot better in your field.

I want you to steal a book from your professor! Well, ask first.

The idea is simple. If you go to a professors office to talk to them about a specific topic or research, ask him/her if they suggest a certain book. Chances are they have a suggestion, they have the book, and they will offer to let you borrow it. If you are offered, take it. Now that you have their book, you have no other choice but to come back to their office. And you are on your way to building a better relationship with your professor.

Photo by Jeff Kubina

Just a simple question.  What would you do if you won the lottery?  Would you drop out of school?  Change your major?  It seems winning the lottery will actually corrupt most people, but it is a very interesting way to determine what your priorities are.  If I won the lottery, I would stay in school and still go on to get my PhD.  I would also spend some money on my own personal supercomputer for scientific research, with several Tesla GPU’s and 24 solid state drives.

What would you do?

So you entered college thinking you knew exactly what you were going to do.  Well, life ended up proving you wrong.  What once was, without a doubt, going to be your major now bores the living hell out of you.  Some students will worry that they can’t change their major, that when they said psychology was going to be their major it was etched into stone.  If you think you can’t change your major then your wrong, it is as easy as saying “I want to change my major.”  To be truthful, I don’t know of a single friend who hasn’t changed their major.

How many times can you change your major?

You can change your major as many times as you want.  I have changed mine about three times now.  But there does become a point in time when it gets a little overboard.  If you are finishing up your third year, chances are you may decide to just go ahead and finish up.  Usually the reason people change their major is because they are too quick to declare a major.  All students think that they have to declare their major the first year.  That isn’t true. You can take your general education courses and then decide.

I know my major is not fit for me, but how do I go about choosing a different one?

There are three resources you can go to, and you should eventually go to all three of them.  The first one you should consider is the career office at your college.  Most colleges have some form of career advisement.  You can probably take a personality test, they may give you a few possible career choices.  (Remember these are just generalized test, they too are not set in stone.)  Once you have researched some of the possible fields the career advisement office suggested, you should head on over to your college adviser.  Your adviser will be able to tell you what courses you will need to take.  When you are leaving your advisers office and he/she asks if you want them to change your major in the system, tell them no.  Tell them you will get back with them.  If you tell them yes, you will feel tied down to that major.

Now you think you know what you want your new major to be.  So you need to talk to one of two people.  You should contact a professor within the major.  Schedule a 30 minute meeting with them and discuss the field and what possibilities it holds in the future.  Or if you are more interested in the industry side of the field than the academic side, you want to find a professional to speak to.  Check with career advisement department to see if they can hook you up with someone.

College isn’t easy, and it is harder if you are working on a major you don’t enjoy.  If you need to change your major, do it.  Life will be much easier.