2012 About.com Readers" Choice Winners: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
2012 About.com Readers' Choice Winners: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
When we asked readers to share their favorite college survival guides - the books that helped their college kids the most - for this year's Readers' Choice Awards, nominations poured in.
You'll find the lowdown on the winner and runners-up on the following pages.(And don't forget to check out the finalists in the other categories - best survival guide for college parents and best dorm room essential - too.)
2012 Winner: How to Survive Your Freshman Year
Title: "How to Survive Your Freshman Year: By Hundreds of Students and Some Great Advisors"
Author: Hundreds of Heads publishers, 236 pages ()
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: Now in its fourth edition, this best-seller is not only a popular high school graduation gift, it's the kind of book that parents read cover to cover before handing it off to junior. Like its sister, "How to Survive Getting Your Kid Into College" (which is a nominee for best survival guide for college parents), this book offers survival tips from the people who know this territory best: college students and recent grads.
It includes everything from what to pack to where to study, as well as advice on Greek life and campus safety. Plus: tips on how not to drop-out, from people who did.
Excerpt:Don't read in your bed; you'll fall asleep. I would read in my bed and, obviously, fall asleep. When you're in your bed, that's what you do. And you start associating reading with falling asleep so anytime you try to read anywhere, you fall asleep. Don't read in your bed. - Bethany, James Madison University, senior
Runner Up: The Naked Roommate
Title: "The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College"
Author: Harlan Cohen (Sourcebooks, 544 pages, )
Website:www.NakedRoommate.com
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: Syndicated advice columnist Harlan Cohen is known for his wise, witty take on all those issues that make teens and 20somethings crazy, and his best-selling "The Naked Roommate" is the book that put him on the map.
(Another of his books, "The Happiest Kid on Campus" is among the finalists for best survival guide for college parents, by the way.) "Naked Roommate" offers practical advice for everything from homesickness and health issues to, yes, nude roomies - and does it with considerable humor and directness. The "punch" in the fruit punch? Check. Hook-ups? Yep. Dorm drama? Definitely.
Excerpt:Assuming you've never spent time in prison and don't intend on spending time in prison, this could be the only time in your life that you'll spend a year or more living with a complete and total stranger. Until you've experienced living in an eight-by-eight foot room with someone you've never met before, it's hard to understand what it takes to get along... Conflict is unavoidable. How you and your roommate deal with it makes all the difference.
Runner Up: Been There, Should've Done That
Title: "Been There, Should've Done That: 995 Tips for Making the Most of College"
Author: Suzette Tyler (Front Porch Press, 283 pages, )
Website:Front Porch Press
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: This fun, quick read offers 995 tips on everything from "roommate roulette" to course scheduling, grade grubbing, hangover survival and on and on. It's written by experts - students from colleges across the country.
Plus: tips on how to impress professors, written by professors, and how to score an interview, with advice from recruiters.
Excerpt:It seemed like there was sooo much more free time in college than in high school - until I realized that it isn't "free." You’re supposed to be studying! It’s just that there’s no one there to tell you to.
Title: "First Year University: A Survival Guide"
Author: Dennis Field and Nancy Gray, editors (CSSP, 154 pages, )
Website:First Year University
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: Like so many of its siblings in the survival guide department, "First Year University" offers the wisdom and advice of college students - 200 first-years, in this case, half from Canada, slightly less than half from the United States and a handful from England, who share their experiences in first-person essays of 1,000 words or so, not blurbs.
There's a lot of good information here and a lot of depth, and the section on pitfalls and mistakes (see excerpt for an example) in particular ought to be required reading for any off-to-college student.
Excerpt:I failed my first year of university. So I packed my bags and went home. Looking back, I realize my mistakes... Because I had so much free time, I figured there was always tomorrow, or the next day, or the weekend to get things done. If a due date was two weeks away that was a lot of time, so procrastinating did not seem like a bad thing. Then due dates began to pile up... When I received a letter telling me my grades were too low to continue my studies, I didn't go and talk to anyone to figure out where I could go from there.
Title: "U Chic: The College Girl's Guide to Everything"
Author: Christie Garton, founder and publisher of UniversityChic.com (Sourcebooks, 432 pages, )
Website:UniversityChic.com
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: Aimed squarely at the chic, female college set, this book hails from the popular UniversityChic website, an online magazine written by young women at colleges around the country.
The chapters deal with everything from dorm decor and campus fashion to sexual harassment, women's health, roommate problems, college majors and Greek life. It's a nice mixture of practical tips and heartfelt tales, with just the right amount of attitude.
Excerpt:The real challenge during your transition to college is after orientation — your first unstructured weekend. I almost couldn't handle it... I was about 5 minutes away from booking a train ticket home for the first weekend when I gave myself a pause. I realized that if I went running for the comforts of suburbia every time things became uncomfortable, I'd spend my college experience in a friendless black hole with nothing but my books to keep me company. - Allison Davis, Barnard College
When we asked readers to share their favorite college survival guides - the books that helped their college kids the most - for this year's Readers' Choice Awards, nominations poured in.
The 2012 Readers' Choice Winner
"How to Survive Your Freshman Year" By Hundreds of Students and Some Great Advisors.The Runners Up
You'll find the lowdown on the winner and runners-up on the following pages.(And don't forget to check out the finalists in the other categories - best survival guide for college parents and best dorm room essential - too.)
2012 Winner: How to Survive Your Freshman Year
Title: "How to Survive Your Freshman Year: By Hundreds of Students and Some Great Advisors"
Author: Hundreds of Heads publishers, 236 pages ()
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: Now in its fourth edition, this best-seller is not only a popular high school graduation gift, it's the kind of book that parents read cover to cover before handing it off to junior. Like its sister, "How to Survive Getting Your Kid Into College" (which is a nominee for best survival guide for college parents), this book offers survival tips from the people who know this territory best: college students and recent grads.
It includes everything from what to pack to where to study, as well as advice on Greek life and campus safety. Plus: tips on how not to drop-out, from people who did.
Excerpt:Don't read in your bed; you'll fall asleep. I would read in my bed and, obviously, fall asleep. When you're in your bed, that's what you do. And you start associating reading with falling asleep so anytime you try to read anywhere, you fall asleep. Don't read in your bed. - Bethany, James Madison University, senior
Runner Up: The Naked Roommate
Title: "The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College"
Author: Harlan Cohen (Sourcebooks, 544 pages, )
Website:www.NakedRoommate.com
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: Syndicated advice columnist Harlan Cohen is known for his wise, witty take on all those issues that make teens and 20somethings crazy, and his best-selling "The Naked Roommate" is the book that put him on the map.
(Another of his books, "The Happiest Kid on Campus" is among the finalists for best survival guide for college parents, by the way.) "Naked Roommate" offers practical advice for everything from homesickness and health issues to, yes, nude roomies - and does it with considerable humor and directness. The "punch" in the fruit punch? Check. Hook-ups? Yep. Dorm drama? Definitely.
Excerpt:Assuming you've never spent time in prison and don't intend on spending time in prison, this could be the only time in your life that you'll spend a year or more living with a complete and total stranger. Until you've experienced living in an eight-by-eight foot room with someone you've never met before, it's hard to understand what it takes to get along... Conflict is unavoidable. How you and your roommate deal with it makes all the difference.
Runner Up: Been There, Should've Done That
Title: "Been There, Should've Done That: 995 Tips for Making the Most of College"
Author: Suzette Tyler (Front Porch Press, 283 pages, )
Website:Front Porch Press
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: This fun, quick read offers 995 tips on everything from "roommate roulette" to course scheduling, grade grubbing, hangover survival and on and on. It's written by experts - students from colleges across the country.
Plus: tips on how to impress professors, written by professors, and how to score an interview, with advice from recruiters.
Excerpt:It seemed like there was sooo much more free time in college than in high school - until I realized that it isn't "free." You’re supposed to be studying! It’s just that there’s no one there to tell you to.
Title: "First Year University: A Survival Guide"
Author: Dennis Field and Nancy Gray, editors (CSSP, 154 pages, )
Website:First Year University
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: Like so many of its siblings in the survival guide department, "First Year University" offers the wisdom and advice of college students - 200 first-years, in this case, half from Canada, slightly less than half from the United States and a handful from England, who share their experiences in first-person essays of 1,000 words or so, not blurbs.
There's a lot of good information here and a lot of depth, and the section on pitfalls and mistakes (see excerpt for an example) in particular ought to be required reading for any off-to-college student.
Excerpt:I failed my first year of university. So I packed my bags and went home. Looking back, I realize my mistakes... Because I had so much free time, I figured there was always tomorrow, or the next day, or the weekend to get things done. If a due date was two weeks away that was a lot of time, so procrastinating did not seem like a bad thing. Then due dates began to pile up... When I received a letter telling me my grades were too low to continue my studies, I didn't go and talk to anyone to figure out where I could go from there.
Title: "U Chic: The College Girl's Guide to Everything"
Author: Christie Garton, founder and publisher of UniversityChic.com (Sourcebooks, 432 pages, )
Website:UniversityChic.com
Finalist for: Best Survival Guide for College Kids
Details: Aimed squarely at the chic, female college set, this book hails from the popular UniversityChic website, an online magazine written by young women at colleges around the country.
The chapters deal with everything from dorm decor and campus fashion to sexual harassment, women's health, roommate problems, college majors and Greek life. It's a nice mixture of practical tips and heartfelt tales, with just the right amount of attitude.
Excerpt:The real challenge during your transition to college is after orientation — your first unstructured weekend. I almost couldn't handle it... I was about 5 minutes away from booking a train ticket home for the first weekend when I gave myself a pause. I realized that if I went running for the comforts of suburbia every time things became uncomfortable, I'd spend my college experience in a friendless black hole with nothing but my books to keep me company. - Allison Davis, Barnard College
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