College Degree Search

The experience of College has its ups and down, but look on the bright side: you’re bound to have fun both during your time at College and afterwards.

1. You’re going to put on weight as a freshman

Depending on the set of statistics you believe, you’re likely going to put on between 5-15 pounds in your freshman year.

Often referred to as the “Freshman 15,” the weight gained is said to be due to less physical activity when you start College (vs High School,) a failure to eat breakfast as a result of sleeping in more often, and excessive consumption of food, particularly at all-you-can-eat establishments.

There’s a simple solution to keeping your weight down: watch what you eat and most importantly keep fit with regular exercise.

2. If you binge drink at College you may be happier and more accepted than others

In no way are we advocating under-age or excessive drinking, but it turns out if you do fancy the odd tipple or 6 you may actually be happier and more accepted by others at College.

The study found:

Those who engaged in binge drinking tend to belong to so-called high-status groups: wealthy, white, male and active in fraternity life. And those who did not belong to the high-status groups could achieve similar levels of social acceptance through the act of binge drinking. In fact, the study results suggest that students engaged in the heavy drinking practice to elevate their social status amongst peers rather than to alleviate depression or anxiety.

Binge drinking was defined as consuming more than four drinks in one occasion for women and more than five drinks for men.

3. You’ll likely party less and study harder

Research has found that college freshman are more studious that their counterparts in the past, and are partying less and studying more.

According to USAToday:

More of them took notes in class, did homework and took more demanding coursework as high school seniors, and fewer said they drank alcohol, partied or showed up late for class.

Those and other trends point toward an entering college freshman class that has a better chance of succeeding academically, say researchers who conducted the survey.

Don’t worry too much though: you can always buck the trend!

 4. More people will smoke pot in your freshman year than smoke cigarettes

Not only has pot become legal in two states, marijuana smoking is more popular among High School Seniors now than is cigarette smoking.

According to a survey released in 2012, 36.4% of 12th graders users marijuana in the past year, vs 18.7% in the last month for cigarettes.

According to the CSMonitor:

The reason why marijuana is becoming so popular is that “the perceived risk is down” which creates “the norms against its use to weaken,” says Lloyd Johnson, the survey’s principal investigator at the University of Michigan.

We’re also talking about years of being scared to death by cigarette warnings as well.

5. There will be more women in your freshman year than men

If you’re a male freshman looking for a girlfriend you’re going to have plenty of potential partners as female students outnumber male student on some campuses by a ratio of as high as three-to-one.

The national average is now 57% women, but that doesn’t give a great freshman picture as the number of women undertaking advanced degrees is lower that undergraduate degrees, although is this is changing.

According to a recent projection:

NCES projects that by 2019 women will represent 59 percent of total undergraduate enrollment and 61 percent of total post-baccalaureate enrollment. Since the late 1990s, NCES added, women have accounted for “about three-fourths” of the increase in the number of master’s degrees awarded in the U.S. and “nearly all” of the growth in the number of professional degrees earned.

If you’re a female and freshman the great news is that the your college experience now comes with a whole lot less testosterone.

Can humor adequately describe the experience of College?

Here’s 10 well known humerous quotes about College.

“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”

— Mark Twain

“Colleges don’t make fools, they only develop them.”

— George Lorimer

“I’m a philosophy major. That means I can think deep thoughts about being unemployed.”

— Bruce Lee

“Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.”

— G. B. Trudeau

“I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy next to me.”

— Woody Allen

“If a man is a fool, you don’t train him out of being a fool by sending him to university. You merely turn him into a trained fool, ten times more dangerous.”

— Desmond Bagley

“Colleges don’t make fools, they only develop them.”

— George Lorimer

“Of course there’s a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don’t take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates.”

— A. Lawrence Lowell

“Economists report that a college education adds many thousands of dollars to a man’s lifetime income—which he then spends sending his son to college.”

— Bill Vaughn

“Definition of a College professor: someone who talks in other people’s sleep.”

— W. H. Auden

Before enrolling in College for the first time American’s get mixed messages about what to expect when they get there: there’s the boozy world of the on-campus fraternities which either lead to comedy or drama, there’s the academics who are either falling in love with their students or undergoing a personal crisis, through to some more serious stories about students finding themselves through study and College sport.

There’s probably tidbits of truth across the broad range of College movies, and here’s ten of the top movies featuring College Life.

10 . A Beautiful Mind 

This 2001 movie staring New Zealand born Russell Crowe tells the story of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economic.

The movie starts with the brilliant, but delusional Nash arriving at Princeton University having been awarded the Carneige Scholarship for mathematics. As the story continues, it features Nash meeting other students and developing friendships along the way. Through his struggles with his growing paranoid schizophrenia, Nash develops his ideas, and is offered a position at MIT.

Without giving away the full story, the movie (which also starred Ed Harris) went on to win the Academy Awards Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress. It was also nominated for Best Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, and Best Original Score.

It’s a serious movie on a serious subject; not for everyone but a fascinating and moving story none the less.

9. Revenge of the Nerds

This 1984 comedy in centered on the social life of a College campus in an old fashioned tale of jocks vs nerds.

Starring Robert Carradine and Anthony Edwards (of ER fame) the movie pits the jocks Alpha Betas and their associated sorority Pi Delta Pis against the freshman dorm that features our so-titled nerds.

The movie progresses with the Nerds seeking their revenge in various different ways.

It hasn’t dated particularly well but still offers some laughs, if you can look past the Hollywood stereotypes portrayed in the film.

8. Road Trip

Todd Pihillip’s 2000 comedy features a rather unexciting cast (the only names I recognize are Sean William Scott and Tom Green) but has become a cult classic at some colleges.

The movie follows a group of college buddies driving across the country trying to beat the postal service.

Josh (Breckin Meyer) recorded a message to his girlfriend Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard) who attends a different college across the country because he hadn’t heard from her in awhile. Because he’s a touch paranoid he naturally convinces himself that Tiffany has been cheating and hooks up with Beth (Amy Smart) who tapes their bedroom antics.  The sex tape then “accidentally” gets mailed instead of the intended video. This opens the door to the Road Trip of the films title as Josh heads of with his friends and ends up experiencing a range of mishaps and adventures.

7. Legally Blonde

2001′s Legally Blonde made $141.77 million at the box office on an $18 million budget, and there’s a reason why.

The movie features Reese Witherspoon playing Elle Woods, a high school sorority president who majors in fashion merchandising and is hopelessly in love with her boyfriend Warner, who is off the Harvard Law School the following year.

After concluding that she might lose him if she doesn’t follow him, she takes the Law School Admission Test, applies and is accepted to Harvard.

The story follows her experiences as she encounters hostility from her classmates and develops as a person before an ending we won’t spoil for you here.

It’s a feel good movie that has spawned a sequel and even a Broadway Musical!

6. Back to School

No list of College movies would be complete without throwing in at least one Rodney Dangerfield classic, and we’ve gone with 1986′s Back to School.

The plot is summed up from IMDB as “To help his discouraged son get through college, a fun loving and obnoxious rich businessman decides to enter the school as a student himself” but that doesn’t do it full justice.

This is a Dangerfield movie after all, so you need to add in some stupidity, crude jokes, puns, wink winks and some more on top… it sounds bad and a modern movie couldn’t get away with it but this is the master, America’s (slightly cleaner) version of Benny Hill. You’ll either love him or hate him, but he was good at what he did.

Also featured in Back to School is a young Robert Downey Jr.

5. Old School

2003′s Old School isn’t strictly a “College” movie as the plot features around ex students trying to recreate their College days, but it features enough College related material we’ve thrown it in.

Staring Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn and Jeremy Piven as depressed thirty-somethings who seek to re-live their college days by starting a fraternity, and the tribulations they encounter in doing so.

The movie (like most Will Ferrell movies) you’ll either love or hate, but the all star cast does give it that something special. Ideal for both College students and former College students alike who loved/ love their College days.

4. Dead Poets Society

Peter Weir’s 1989 movie Dead Poet’s society bought us the inspirational story of an English teacher who inspires his students through the teaching of poetry.

Starring Robin Williams as teacher John Keating, and with a supporting cast of Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke, the movie takes the viewer through the world of the conservative and aristocratic Welton Academy in Vermont in 1959.

The movie inspires even years later, and is arguably Robin Williams’ best role on the big screen.

The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Best Direct, Best Actor, and Best Picture, but sadly only picked up Original Screenplay against strong competition.

On a budget of $16.4 million it made $235.86 million at the box office.

3. National Lampoon’s Van Wilder

2002′s National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (know simply as Van Wilder in some markets) is a comedy film starring a rather interesting cast: interesting in that some went on to much bigger and better things…while others didn’t.

The movie started Ryan Reynolds, Tara Reid, Kal Penn and Tim Matheson, and tells the story of a popular kid on campus who meets a beautiful journalist who makes him realize that maybe he’s afraid of graduating.

In traditional National Lampoon style the movie is rich with disgusting pranks, back love story, sex and more. There’s also a sub-plot around Kal Penn which adds a different dimension to the film.

Not for everyone, but it has an audience, and has its moments.

2. The Social Network

The only movie from this decade to be featured in our list, 2010′s the Social Network delivered an amazing film that while not spending its entire time focused on College life, did highlight college life for its opening half.

The movie tells the story of the rise of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook.

Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) is at Harvard University when he creates an on-campus website called Facemash, a site that allows users to rate the attractiveness of female students.

If you haven’t seen it yet I won’t spoil it, but you’d be living in a cave if you didn’t know how successful Facebook ended up.

There are stand out performances by Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake and Rooney Mara. Unlike our number one pick this is a movie I’ve watched half a dozen times, and if you haven’t seen it yet I can’t recommend it enough.

1. Animal House

1978′s Animal House isn’t my personal pick, but it constantly rates across dozens of sites as the greatest College life movie ever.

The John Landis directed movie stared the late great John Belushi as John “Bluto” Blutarsky and focuses on the actor’s desire to join a fraternity, and their battles once they do.

Animal House has been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, was voted No. 1 on Bravo’s “100 Funniest Movies” and was ranked 36 on the AFI’s “100 years, 100 laughs” list. It has also been named on Empire Magazines top 500 movies of all time.

It cost all of $3 million to make, and made a staggering $141.6 million at the box office.

Being a student is rarely easy, but thanks to advances in technology, it’s a little easier than before. What follows is a list of 5 iPhone apps essential for the everyday life of a college student:

Students can easily become stressed out when every all of their personal and academic obligations begin to pile up. However, iHomework can assist in relieving that stress for only $1.99. Acting as both a personal and academic agenda, this app allows users to upload the due dates of individual assignments as well as schedule any upcoming tests. Students can even upload their grades to a specific assignment in order to allow the app help determine his or her final grade. Users can also input their class schedules along with reminders to help eliminate chances of tardiness, as well as send them to classmates to keep friends from missing class.

For the punctual and organized note-taker, EverNote is a must have iPhone app. With this handy program, students can take down both text and audio notes, create to-do lists, and even capture photos to help aid in the learning process, all of which can be synced to personal computers and other devices and even shared with others.

When it comes to taking tests, the old methods are still just as good. Flashcards+, an app designed at Harvard University, utilizes the age-old method of using flashcards by bringing it into the 21st century. This app allows the user to create digital flashcards to flip through, sync online and with other devices, and share with fellow classmates. With a simple shake of the hand, the flashcards are shuffled and study time is optimized. Furthermore, there is also an option to ‘check’ the more difficult cards in order to better drill the tough ones into the user’s memory. Users can also scroll through millions of premade decks. All for the low cost of $0, this is a must have for any test taking student.

For many college students, personal finance is just as important, if not more important, than academics. Luckily, MoneyWiz allows students to place control of their budgets in the palm of their hands. For $4.99, users can create multitudes of accounts from checking accounts to what’s in the user’s wallet. Bank account statements can be uploaded to this app through OFX, QFX, and QIF files, and anytime a transaction occurs, users can plug in the necessary information. There is also an option that allows users to create a personalized budget which the app will keep track of, as well as warn users when certain bills and payments are approaching.

Adding on to the subject of personal finance, being a college student is not often synonymous with having cash to spend, which makes Groupon an essential app to have. Free to download, users can use this app to find and purchase local deals on food, events, fitness training, and other goods ranging anywhere from 50-90% off, all from the comfort of the iPhone.