Ventures Scholars Program | Undergraduate Resource Center

Undergrad Scholars
The Personal Side

The Personal Side

This section provides you with links to a variety of sites that will help you with personal issues and concerns while you are in college.

Alcohol and Drugs
Concentrating
Eating Disorders
Freshmen Issues and Concerns
Getting Along with Roommates
Happiness
Making Decisions
Mental Health
Pressure
Relationships
Senior Issues and Concerns
Stress
Time Management
Workplace Issues

ALCOHOL AND DRUGS

Issues Related to Alcohol and Other Drugs
Do you know someone who is drinking too much? Are you drinking too much? This site provides information about the effects of alcohol and drugs and suggestions to help those who might have a drinking or drug problem.

College Drinking Issues
Is the drinking on college campus as wide spread as reported? It is as dangerous as the media says it is? These articles explore the problems and solutions of today's college drinking culture.

CONCENTRATING

Concentrating
Why can't I concentrate? Concentration is your ability to work without letting people, feelings or activities interfere. There are three steps to developing your concentration ability: establish some concentration, increase concentration, and develop the concentration habit.

EATING DISORDERS

Disordered Eating and Eating Disorders
Eating disorders are mental disorders that can have serious physical complications. These disorders may make normal functioning difficult and can become chronic, crippling illnesses and in extreme cases require hospitalization. There are three main types of eating disorders: Anorexia, Bulimia, and binge eating. These are complex disorders focusing on issues of eating, body weight, and body shape. Disordered eating can lead to an eating disorder. It is important to identify eating habits and change them before they become severe.

Weight Gain at College
Everyone's heard warnings about the "freshman 15," but is it true that many college students pack on 15 pounds during their first year at school? Recent studies find that some first-year students are indeed likely to gain weight. Researchers at Cornell University found that students gained an average of 4 pounds during the first 12 weeks of their freshman year - a rate of gain that is 11 times higher than the typical weight gain for 17- and 18-year-olds.

College Students and Their Eating Habits
Many college students go on some kind of diet at least once a year, sometimes for health reasons, and often to lose weight. Studying at college can actually make people gain weight. However, not many college students worry about a diet that could help them study better.

FRESHMAN ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Adjusting to College Life
Becoming a college student is an exciting change in life. But with the independence comes responsibility. If you want to make the most out of the college experience, you should be prepared to make the right choices, from washing your socks to dropping a class or changing your major.

The Balancing Act At College
Freshman year. It's the make or break period of college life. So much is new. New school. New faces. New demands, in and out of class. And new temptations. Well, maybe not so new, but certainly more of them � sometimes as close as the other side of your dorm door. And nobody to say no.

GETTING ALONG WITH ROOMMATES

Tips for living with Roommates
Living in the halls is an important and exciting part of college life. Whether you know your roommate or are meeting for the first time, living with another person is difficult at times. Open, honest and constant communication is the key to successful roommate relationships. Often it is difficult to talk about differences when you and your roommate are first trying to get to know each other. If you intend to live together happily, you need to realize and resolve your personal difference early in the fall semester. The first step is to begin talking about the things you value and about your lifestyles, so that you can find out where differences exist.

Read more:
http://www.bsc.edu/campus/residence_life/roommate_tips.htm

College Roommates: Living With Your Opposite
Are you living with your total opposite? It's amazing how different two people sharing the same (tiny) room can be. Even the littlest things can drive us crazy after awhile! You eat Big Macs and chicken wings while your roommate swears by tofu and beans; you like Coldplay and your roommate cranks up Tim McGraw. You're East Coast; your roommate is West Coast. Whatever your differences (and there are bound to be a few), you need to figure out what you're willing to live with and what's fair to ask your roommate to change.

Read more:
http://www.sideroad.com/College_and_University/living-college-roomates.html

Interaction with Roommates Shapes College Years
We've all been woken up in the middle of the night by the most obnoxious of sounds. Whether it's because of cars flying by with blaring systems, 30 drunk guys screaming the Eagles chant outside your window or, worst of all, your roommate viciously clearing his sinuses, we all share these experiences.

Read more:
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2005/10/10-11-05tdc/10-11-05dops-column-01.asp

Getting Along with Your College Roommate
She was a nightmare! My first roommate and I could not have been more different had some sort of incompatibility test matched us. To her, the floor was a substitute for a closet, studies were something to be ignored, and the only thing worth majoring in was boys – lots of them.

Read more:
http://psychcentral.com/library/id95.html

Getting Along: Tips for Freshmen Roommates
Freshman rooming situations can be a nightmare. My midwestern roomie got falling-down drunk every Thursday through Sunday night, while the Louisiana boy who shared a bunk bed with me made frequent ceremonial offerings to a legendary bayou voodoo queen. I realized within days that we were not going to be lifelong best friends. My goal was survival.

Read more:
http://www.familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,21-8205,00.html

College Relationships: Getting Along With Your Roommate
Living with a new roommate can be an excellent experience. I have been in college for two years and have lived through both the good and the bad of roommate relationships (but mostly the good).

Read more:
http://www.iamnext.com/people/roommate.html

HAPPINESS

The Harvard Guide to Happiness
Lost in the current obsession to get into The Best U is something most adults readily admit, at least in hindsight: It doesn't matter so much where you go to college, but what you make of the experience.

Overcoming Depression and Finding Happiness
Expecting dissatisfaction and failure, depressed people often give up easily and thereby bring on failure. Happy people know that every failure is a learning experience that can lead to success if they refuse to give up. Starting a successful business, for example, may take many years of learning what doesn't work. After causing their own failure by giving up, depressed people often blame their problems on fate, bad luck, other people, circumstances, or their incompetence. They may passively resign themselves to problem situations and let the problems continue. Their pessimistic thinking leads them to reject many enjoyable activities. Sometimes their lack of motivation involves not knowing what to do to improve things or fear of making the needed changes.

Finding Happiness
This article was written by a soon-to-be Princeton graduate.

MAKING DECISIONS

How to Make Decisions: Coherence, Emotion, and Practical Inference
Students face many important decisions: What college or university should I attend? What should I study? What kind of job should I try to get? Which people should I hang out with? Should I continue or break off a relationship? Should I get married? Should I have a baby? What kind of medical treatment should I use? A theory of practical reasoning should have something to say about how students and other people can improve their decision making.

MENTAL HEALTH

Depression
You might be feeling a bit depressed. Learn how to combat depression.

Social Phobias
Social anxiety is the third largest psychological problem in the world today but few people understand this. Social phobia is an intense fear of becoming humiliated in social situations, specifically of embarrassing yourself in front of other people. It often runs in families & may be accompanied by depression or alcoholism. Social phobia often begins around early adolescence or even younger.

Online Mental Health Resources
Check out some online mental health resource sites.

PRESSURE

Mid-Term Exams : Coping With Pressure
The mere fact that mid-terms are intended to monitor one's understanding of a subject mid-way through the term carries a heavy burden for most students.

RELATIONSHIPS

Dating and Peer Relationships in College
This site provides some great advice for college students.

Socializing in College
The Thread: To Socialize or Not to Socialize As far as social life, I can't stress enough the importance of at least trying to get out and be involved. It really doesn't matter in what- clubs, teams, friends, whatever... It won't be easy...but it's worth it.

Healthy Relationships
Are you in a healthy relationship? These articles provide some insight into developing a healthy relationship.

Having a Healthy Relationship
Being a college student and maintaining a healthy romantic relationship can be a difficult task. While you may receive a great deal of support, comfort, and satisfaction from your relationship, you may also feel confused and frustrated by the additional responsibilities and demands on your time. How you negotiate and balance the many roles you play will greatly influence the quality of your life together and the quality of your student experience.

SENIOR ISSUES AND CONCERNS

College Seniors � Making the Last Year Work
Harder classes. Laziness. Senioritis. It has been said that no year of college is more difficult than that endured by seniors.

Read more:
http://www.collegeseniors.net/

STRESS

Stress and the College Student
College life can be very stressful. Sometimes parents, faculty and others tend to idealize their college experience and remember it as that idyllic time when they had few worries or responsibilities. To students currently attending college, however, the process is often stressful and frustrating.

Feeling Overwhelmed
As the end of the semester arrives, so does stress , a feeling of being overwhelmed by all that you need, should and want to do. Stress comes from impending exams, assignments that are due, as well as from family, friends, work and from yourself. The harder you work, the further behind you seem to get. And then the car breaks down!

Read more:
http://www.counseling.umd.edu/Selfhelp/sh_whelm.htm

Handling Stress
College/university life can be stressful. The following sites provide some helpful hints about handling stress or helping someone who is not handling the stress in his/her life!

Finding Hope & Help: College Student & Depression Pilot Initiative Fact Sheets

Adjustment to Life's Changes, Anxiety Disorders and Depression, Eating Disorders and Depression, Alcohol and Drug Abuse and Depression, and Suicide and Depression.

You need stress in your life! Does that surprise you? Perhaps so, but it is quite true. Without stress, life would be dull and unexciting. Stress adds flavor, challenge, and opportunity to life. Too much stress, however, can seriously affect your physical and mental well-being. A major challenge in this stress-filled world of today is to make the stress in your life work for you instead of against you.

Transition to a Healthy Lifestyle
You probably will have to make a number of changes in your life. Your school schedule will change, you might have to work more or fewer hours, and your sleep pattern might be affected, as well as your eating and exercising habits. And of course, your stress level could increase because of these changes and new pressures. In order to be an effective student, you must take care of your physical and emotional health. These "Transition to a Healthy Lifestyle" tips are presented to assist you in maintaining and developing healthy behaviors in order to perform at peak emotional and physical levels.

TIME MANAGEMENT ISSUES

Time Management
Tick, tick, tick ...No, it's not the beginning to 60 MINUTES nor is it the dreaded crocodile coming to get Captain Hook. It's time moving on. College students often report that their inability to manage their time is the biggest problem they face in college. Time management is a skill few people master, but it is one that most people need.

Read more:
http://www.d.umn.edu/student/loon/acad/strat/time_manage.html

Managing Your Time
Many students discover the need to develop or hone their time management skills when they arrive at college. Unlike high school where teachers frequently structured your assignments and classes filled your day, in college, you will have less in-class time, more outside of class work, and a great deal of freedom and flexibility.

Read more:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/success/time.html

Balancing your College Schedule
Attending classes, studying, working a part-time job, participating in extracurricular activities, and finding time for your friends, family and yourself can be a hard schedule for college students to balance. This is why it is crucial for you to achieve time management skills early so you will not become too stressed out once you get more involved in your school activities.

Read more:
http://www.ecampustours.com/campuslife/balancingcollegeschedule.aspx

WORKPLACE ISSUES

Getting Along with Your Boss
You might be working at a summer job. Understand, the fact that your boss, like yourself, is a human being. Like everyone else, bosses come in all shapes and sizes. Like you, your boss has ambitions, aspirations, and dreams. Some bosses are good managers, others bad, but most fall somewhere in the middle range.