College Tidbits Blog

Guest Blogger: Aundrea Rogers

College is a time for a new start: new friends, new life experiences, and a new found knowledge. However, college is also known for the dreaded Freshman 15. The 15 pounds that many students gain their first year away from home on a college campus.

This is due in part to poor eating habits: no parents telling you to eat your vegetables or not to eat after 9 pm. It also stems from inactivity. You go to class, and when you are done for the day you have hours upon hours to lie in bed in your dorm room or just chill on the couch with friends at the student union.

However, contrary to popular belief, not all first year students gain those 15 pounds everyone talks about, and luckily, I was one of them. My friends and I fought off the Freshman 15 and the steps we took to do this were fairly easy and I am here to share my advice with anyone who would like to go back home, after months of being away at school, looking the same way they did when they left in August.

1. Eat a balanced diet: No one is telling you to stick to a fruit and veggies diet only. As a college student, you will grow to love pizza and burgers. However, try and add in an apple here or some yogurt there. Try drinking juice instead of grabbing that Dr. Pepper, and don’t eat that pizza from the night before for breakfast. Go get that bagel with a bit of cream cheese from the cafeteria.
2. Stay active: This is perhaps one of the more important pieces of advice that I have. You have to stay active and move about if you expect to keep some of that weight off. On a nice day, don’t sit in your dorm room watching television.Go out for a walk with friends around the campus. On a day when you have less studying to do, go to the recreational center or the gym and see what programs they have to offer, such as dance classes or fun workouts. Every little bit of exercise whether it seem as small as dancing in your dorm with friends does indeed help.
3. Watch your portion sizes: Just because dining halls are all you can eat most of the time does not mean that you need to pile every single food item you see onto your plate. Instead of grabbing 5 of those freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, why not take 2 and then some fresh pineapples. Even if you are dying to get 2 of those delicious burgers straight from the grill, just settle for one: trust me, it will benefit you in the long run.
4. Deal with stress effectively: Believe it or not, stress is a cause in weight gain, and being a college student, you will at times feel as if the whole world is on your shoulders. Its Wednesday night and you have two papers due that you haven’t even started, and you have a test in a class that you just do not understand.It is at times like these where you are up all night trying to get everything done and you need quick fixes. Every student’s best friend: caffeine. The smart thing to do would be to manage stress so that you are not in this situation to begin with. Manage your time wisely so that you are not put in a position where you must take an all-nighter, which can in turn take a huge toll on your body as well.

There are in fact many more tips that others have on fighting off the Freshman 15, but these 4 tips are the ones that I found the most helpful during my first year away at school.

So next time you are in your room and you are thinking about going to the dining hall, or you are up all night studying for an exam, or you are sitting in your room watching television to pass the time, I encourage you to recall these 4 tips I have given you and I guarantee you that you will get the results you want.

My name is Phyllis Simington and I am a Phoenix. This means that I am a student at the University of Phoenix. I am an online student there which means I do my class work on my computer.

I started classes on November 27, 2007 and I will earn my Master’s Degree in Psychology on July 6, 2009. I will march in the spring commencement in downtown Chicago in mid June. I am able to march in the city because University of Phoenix has schools all over the country.

It has been interesting attending online classes; I have come in contact with people from all over. We have to work with a team for some assignments in every class I was on a team with a woman from Japan and one from Hawaii. I had a class with a man from Africa last six weeks.

The classes are six weeks long. The week begins on Tuesday and ends on the following Monday. We have two daily questions that we have to write answers to in 200 to 300 word papers and one is due on one day and the other on another. We are then to respond to our classmates answers at least four days out of the seven at least twice a day or two people a day.

Some professors require three times a day. There are also research papers to be written of 1,050 to 1,500 words long. Our teams have to work together to do projects which usually includes doing a PowerPoint for one assignment. There is also much reading; three to four chapters a week and four to five articles also.

This has been a wonderful experience for me.

Today’s Guest Blogger: Charles Sumpter, Jr. 

I went on a term abroad to China in my sophmore year in college.

I do not know about all of you, but most students at my school didn’t go on a term abroad until at least their senior year, so I was jumping the gun. My school boasted about the amount of students who went abroad and I was just happy to be represented in such a high statistic.

I went to Shanghai, China for my term abroad, and that experience quite frankly has changed my life.

Before I went to China, I had only taken one year of Mandarin. I was blown away by the number of people who did not speak any English. However, I do not regret that experience at all because it really put my Mandarin to the test, and made it stronger. I had to order food, get around and take my classes all in Mandarin; so in a sense I was really immersed in the culture.

My senior thesis dealth with nuclear proliferation between the U.S. and China and that was influenced by my term abroad experience. My thesis later became my first book, State of Existence, which will be released on November 22. So all in all, my term abroad experience has in fact changed my life, 4 years later.

I would love to go back to China one day and see just how much has changed since I last been there.

I will tell everyone who is considering going abroad to do it. Do not let anything stand in your way, whether it is finances, or just scared of going away from home. There are ways around that and I am certainly glad I did it when I did.

When I went away, the U.S. was in the middle of the Presidential elections. Actually, I remeber sitting in a hotel in Beijing on election night watching the numbers as they came in. I can also remember walking down the street at night and people asking me how could Americans vote for Bush again.

I did not know what to say, I tried my best to explain, but certain things are uniquely American and I had a hard time getting through to many.

As I said before, anyone out there please seriously consider going abroad, it changed my life and it will change yours.

Charles A. Sumpter Jr. a native of New York City recently completed his undergraduate degree at Union College in Schenectady, New York while also taking credits at American University in Washington, DC.

He graduated with an interdepartmental degree in Political Science and Modern Languages (Mandarin).

During his undergraduate experience, Sumpter traveled to china and studied at Fudan University in Shanghai.  He now calls Washington, DC his home and works as a Congressional Affairs Analyst.

You can contact Charles by visiting his blog: A Leader in the Making