For most students, taking down lecture notes is an uninteresting activity; something to be avoided at all costs. However, class notes are indispensable when preparing for exams. Diligent class notes are a great help for distilling key concepts and in last-minute reviews before the exams. They help build the mind for reflection as well. Therefore it becomes necessary to acquire the art of taking down effective notes. Some key points that will help you take good notes are:

1. Record the date, topic/ title and the speaker’s name. Also number your pages

2. Sit in a place from where you can see and hear the speaker clearly. Avoid noisy partners and distractions

3. As an introduction, provide general information about the topic in discussion. State the speaker’s purpose

4. Mark important ideas, terms, concepts and critical information. Underline them or highlight them using asterisk or boxes

5. Write down anything written on the board by the speaker. These are obviously significant ideas, ones that are emphasized and bound to be repeated. Make a note of new words and ideas

6. When the speaker alludes to the text, make a mention of the page numbers in your notes

7. If you are unable to keep up with the speaker, jot down key words and phrases. Leave space for the information that you have missed. You can always check later with the speaker or your classmates to help fill in the gaps

8. Build an attitude of participation. Listen attentively and take careful notes. Keep a record of your ideas relating to the topic in discussion and also make of note of any queries. Ask questions and get your doubts clarified. The speaker will always be ready to help you out

To make effective use of the notes, students must review the notes regularly, read them aloud repeating the key concepts and reflect. These combined will help connect class ideas to the notes and other readings and aid the learning process.

Attending Westwood College Online

Those interested in furthering their education and going to college online can enter The School of Professional Studies, which offers business administration degrees with majors in management, marketing management, fashion merchandising, healthcare management, or accounting and financial management. A Master of Business Administration is also available. More than 250 professors from these fields help students gain the practical knowledge they will need from their online degree programs to expand their skills base.

Westwood College has catered its distance learning experience toward working adults who need a flexible academic schedule that suits a busy lifestyle. Generally speaking, students are able to choose the time they work on their online degree. As is necessary for many online colleges, the school utilizes advanced online technology and other resources to help enhance the students’ learning experience.

The school’s online classrooms are accessible anywhere there is an Internet connection. By attending this college online, students will experience small class sizes, and the opportunity to interact with their fellow classmates. Career counselors, tutors and other advisors are also on hand to help, and financial aid and alumni retraining options are available for qualified individuals.

Accreditation and Ranking Among Online Colleges

Westwood is accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, an affiliate of the North Central Association, and a candidate with The Higher Learning Commission. The school is also a Top 20 Online College.

• Splash water in your eyes if you are feeling sleepy: Be relaxed. Go and splash water in your eyes. Have a cup of hot coffee if you are still feeling sleepy. This will help you to stay awake and concentrate in your work all night.

• Be patient: Do not panic. This will increase your tension. Sort out what you have to do. Plan how you are going to execute the entire essay within next three hours time. Time management with a proper planning can help you to deliver a good essay.

• Meditate for five minutes: To increase concentration at this hour, meditate for five minutes. Close your eyes and try to concentrate.

• Start with your essay writing: Now start your essay writing. Follow the following tips to deliver a good college essay.

• Have a good night sleep: After you have completed with your essay have a good night sleep. Sound sleep is very important to concentrate in your college lessons the next day.

Steps to write a good essay

• Topic selection:

To write a good essay, the first thing you need to do, is to choose a good topic. If the topic is already given to you, then you need not bother about the topic selection. Basically, whatever be the topic, if you can justify it properly then you can compose a good essay, devoid of the subject matter.

• Arrange points:

As soon as you have collected points on a topic, try to arrange them logically. Unless you display your thoughts in a logical manner your essay cannot be a good one.

• Expression:

Use those words which can express your thoughts in the best possible manner.

• Logical progression:

Link up your thoughts and express them rationally. There should be continuity of thought between sentences and paragraphs. Overall, the entire essay should be a complete structure.

If you follow these tips, no wonder you can compose the best essay in your class, within three hours at the night time.

However, if you are coordinating a book club for the first time, try to keep things a bit loose initially. Besides, you will also have to decide how frequently you will meet and a meeting place for conducting your first meeting. Once these decisions are finalized, start recruiting and pulling your group members together.

The following are some tips on how to start your book club:

• Ask your existing friends and acquaintances if they are interested in joining you or if they know other students with similar interest.

• You can contact the Alumni Association of your high school and find out if any of them are in your college and are interested in discussing books and literature.

• You can also pin up invitation at the college notice board.

• Visit your college’s student forum and post invitation and messages about your book club.

• Contact with your college library and figure out if you can publicize your new book club in their free bulletin board.

• While choosing books, you can either allow each member to take a turn or leave it up to the group as a whole.

• Try to select a discussion leader for each book and allow every member to take a turn. However, the leader needs to keep the discussion rolling as well as bring up new questions and relevant points.

Last but not the least, enjoy yourself. Do not focus too much on organizational details, rather try to enjoy the opportunity to read and discuss the books of your interest.

Admission essay questions are quite difficult to attempt. Yet, it is essential that you answer all the questions correctly in your essay. The basic question asks students to share their personal information. This allows the selection commission to know a student well – his goals or plans, his philosophy or beliefs, an important incident in his life, his financial condition, etc. Writing college entrance essay allows a student to prove that he is the most deserving candidate.

Things To Remember While College Entrance Essay

• Understand the question clearly. Then list down some appropriate answers to answer the questions.

• Never write a general essay that looks similar to the essays written by other candidates. Any answer you give must uncover something about you to make others think that they know you personally.

• If you face trouble in thinking of new ideas, try to accumulate it from different resources. If anyone has written recommendation letter for you, read it carefully.

• Proofread and check for grammar and spelling mistakes over and over again. Let friends, parents and teachers proofread your college entrance essays.

• Write what you know and understand. Never provide fake information about yourself. You do not need to be a good writer to write down your thoughts.

• Your essay must include concrete examples and specific incidents.

• Never use ambiguous vocabulary just to impress the commission; it will make your college entrance essay look showy and artificial.

• Try to follow the guidelines about things such as essay length and font size. Sometimes, you need to hand-write an essay, and other times you need to type it. Sometimes, your essay is needed in a separate sheet of paper, other times it is needed on application form.

You have ideas, thoughts, plans, aspirations, motivations, and dreams. You see the world as your playground; obstacles and oppositions are at a minimum. You are surrounded by people just like yourself who have similar interests and thoughts. You are in a constant state of a creativity flux. One day you meet an eccentric recluse with an idea of how to revolutionize the slow cooking movement in your hometown, the next you meet a cross country runner who practices 4 times a day, counts calories, believes warm-ups are sexy, and thinks of nothing more than the feeling she gets at mile 25.

The greatest thing about college is the fact that it is designed to nurture and develop. Design and nurture what you may ask? That is limitless, but often limited by the focus of the college or the imagination of the student.

Take it from me, once you graduate, your access to the university is severely limited.

The best time to pursue any type of entrepreneurial quest is while you are a student at a university. Do not spend your time hatching the “perfect” plan, instead, move your idea out the door as quickly as possible. Get your idea in front of faculty members. Find faculty that have an entrepreneurial background. Email your universities newspaper, radio station, tv station, or even their public relations department. A university is filled with people who can help you take an idea through to the launch of the end result.

Think about all the things you have going for you as a student with an idea:

1. Being in debt up to your eye balls has very few advantages, but one of them is that it affords you the time you would have otherwise spent on a dead-end job.
2. Every large university has everything a business needs to succeed.
3. You are paying to attend the university, so naturally the majority of faculty feel like they owe you something (if only a little).
4. An atmosphere that naturally fosters creativity even if it wasn’t designed for it.
5. Spectacular access to a brilliant pool of labor.
6. General lack of real-world responsibility.

Greg McAdoo spoke at the Startup School 2008 and gave a great analogy about surfers and startups. He said, and I am paraphrasing, that the greatest surfers in the world don’t make their own waves. They don’t go against the waves, they choose the right wave and ride it perfectly. And that is what a great founder has to do.

So my challenge to you is simple.

Find your huge wave and ride it with passion, conviction, and courage.

When you are entering a Sorority or Fraternity you need to become friends with the old members. The best way to get introduced and break the ice is to bring in gifts with you. A popular one among the gifts is a paddle. It is regarded as a symbol of entering into a Sorority or Fraternity. So, when you are entering into a Sorority or Fraternity, get a good paddle. Following are the tips that you need to follow while making a paddle.

a) Buying the right kind of paddle: When you are going to buy a paddle you would find that there are lots available in the market. Choose the right one from the various sizes and shapes that are available. General rule is smaller paddles are for girls and bigger paddles are for boys. Also if you want to spray paint it after buying do not go for a finished one. If you want to paint it with a brush then take both finished and unfinished would do.

b) Painting the paddle: Before you start painting keep in mind to buy the right color. However, the colors vary if you are spray painting the paddle. Before you start painting, put the paddle on a newspaper. This will ensure that you do not paint anything else that comes on your way. While you use the spray paint ensure that the spray is evenly spread. If you are not painting any part you cover it up with a duck tape.

c) Letters to be used: It is always better to use stick on letters over the paddles. These letters have adhesive on their backs and come in various shapes and sizes. Choose according to the size of the paddle. You can color these letters with paint markers. These markers come in various colors and therefore choose carefully so that it matches the color of your organization.

d) Personal message: Do not paint the back of the paddle. Instead you write your personal message at the back of the paddle.

These are the basic steps of making a paddle for gift.

The Greek system in Universities:

The long held social systems in Greek University Campuses are known as Sororities and Fraternities. This is therefore a system which has been devised by the Greeks; but gradually the system made its impact in different places.

Sororities for females and Fraternities for males:

Sororities are generally for females, and Fraternities generally for males – some “sororities” are actually “female fraternities” as defined by their charter. The difference is negligible today although in the past there were differences.

Rampant Sexism in Greek System:

In the Greek system, sexism is quite rampant. According to the report, unofficial attitude which fraternities take toward women is extremely misogynistic. This can be exemplified: as in some groups, people, especially males, pledges for “tagging” female guests; they are labeled either as off limits to other members. There are also some instances of institutional sexism.

Sorority: Titled as bawdy house:

There are many schools which have labeled the sorority houses as “bawdy house”. This is because in the sorority house, all the members are female and live under an ordered title much to the agony of the fraternity house.

Drug and Fraternity :

Although drug is banned in most of the sorority and fraternity houses, in some of the fraternity houses, the practice is till in vogue. Thus in some fraternity houses, taking drug and alcohol is a common practice.

Rush to get chance in Sorority/ Fraternity:

You need to rush in order to get a chance into sorority or fraternity. The next thing that you should do is pledge. After that you shall be finally accepted as a member of that group.

Legacy System in Sorority and Fraternity;

A legacy system is still in vogue in some sorority and fraternity houses. If you have your near relative, like father, mother, sister or brother in any of the houses, then you can get ready entry. This is despised by many members of the house, and they do not honor this system.

Sororities and Fraternities are elitist still:

At present, both the sororities and fraternities are elitist people. Since they gave a Greek foundation, they have a strong sense of snobbery and selectivity in them.

North America and Sorority, Fraternity:

In North America, the primary purpose of this division is development of character and imparting leadership ability. Thus it is employed for a social cause.

The case is not so. There are two different types of people; the lazy and the lively. If you belong to the former then you won’t work either at college or at home. If you are lively, then you shall always love to do work.

Staying at home becomes a nice experience for the energetic people. If you have the aptitude for doing work and really believe in yourself, then home is just the right place for you. If you stay at home, then juts follow the tips below:

• Creating a routine: Make a routine for your studies. Making a routine would enable you to divide your time and you can concentrate on each and every paper with care and attention. Dividing the time would be beneficial for your exams as well.
• Don’t mingle in daily hassles: Make sure to stay away from the daily hassles at home. If you interfere in the daily hassles, then you will unnecessarily fall into troubles and find yourself in deep waters. If you mingle in various domestic affairs then you cannot concentrate on your studies.
• Save money: While staying at home, you actually save a lot of money which is required for transportation. The money that you save may serve in course of time to come. So, if you are studying an online course, then the most important benefit is your saving money.
• Relaxation: You can actually relax while doing your work at home. Even if you are studying, options for rest is always open for you. Therefore, studying from home (online education, if you prefer so) would enable you to have a more comfortable and substantial time than going to college and wasting energy and time on transportation.

1) Get involved in every activity of the college: Try to be a part of almost all the activities in the college. This will help you be in touch with the people who are regulars in college parties. You should be friendly to everyone because you never know who can help you get into a party. A fraternity or a sorority is a obvious choice for joining if they are present in your college. If not then go and join any club or any other organization. The more you mix, more are the chances of getting invitations for going to college parties.

2) Do not get in a college party in big groups: It is always better that you and your friends break up into small groups for getting in to college parties. If you are in a big group, chances are that you might not have the opportunity of getting in.

3) Carry in your own alcohol: It is a smart thing to do because of mainly two reasons. One is that there is a chance of anyone fixing you a drink laced with drugs. Another reason is no one can think that you are too cheap a person who does not want to buy his or her own drinks.

4) Wear the right kind of shoes: It is important to choose your footwear carefully before going to a college party. Parties might be held in dirty basements, then wear those footwear which would not get ruined after a beer party. Do not spoil your expensive shoes.

Follow these tips and you will be a regular in college parties.