Freshman 15: How to Avoid Weight Gain in College
It has become almost axiomatic that students will gain a substantial amount of weight in the first semester or two or three of college. The reasons are manifold, and the prevention is not easy.
However, self-awareness is a very good beginning strategy for preventing and correcting problems. We will look at some causes of collegiate weight gain and suggest some adaptive strategies in this and future articles.
First, most high schools still require some sort of physical education , whether it is a several-times weekly PE class with dreaded dodge ball games and calisthenics, or interscholastic sports that take kids other schools to compete in a variety of sports. In most high schools with a college preparatory orientation, one way or another, there is physical activity built in to the week, at least in the USA.
College, with some exceptions, generally does not require any such physical activity. There are exceptions, of course. Columbia University requires that their graduates be able to swim, but this is rather unusual. This means that the caloric consumption that might have kept you in metabolic balance in high school is inappropriate in college. Unless you cut way back on intake, there is an inevitable result – weight gain.
Second, exercise at college often feels like a waste of time unless one is there on a sports scholarship. Although not true of every student, it is a sentiment often heard regretfully expressed. Colleges sometimes seem schizophrenic in their attitude and practices with regard to this issue.
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Practical College Classes: Use Them in Real Life, Find a Job! PART 4
Getting a college degree is a major investment of both time and money, and it would reassure hard-pressed families and students to have some assurance that their education was going to prove useful.
We talked in earlier articles about finding practical courses in the ivory tower, and seeking training in state colleges, community colleges, and commercial schools, for the health and computing fields. These ideas continue below.
Another direction to take in terms of instantly practical skills is the food service industry. The Culinary Institute of America, in the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York State, or the Napa Valley of California, and the Restaurant School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania both offer highly professional training that prepares students to work in any food related setting.
Students run restaurants inside the school that are destinations for diners from their whole regions. In the case of the Restaurant School, the design, theme, and menu of the student-run restaurant changes every few weeks, to give students a chance to participate in the process of creating a new restaurant concept on their own.
Both these institutions offer non-credit courses that introduce enthusiastic amateurs to the hot and steamy world of the restaurant kitchen. There are local cooking schools in most areas, and many community colleges offer this training as well. Will taking one or two courses in omelet-making or wine-matching ready you for a real job? The likelihood is that they won’t but restaurants are generally run by idiosyncratic entrepreneurs, and one never knows what will strike a restaurateur positively when hiring.
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Web Review: Readfa.st
Is reading a problem? Is it tough to read important information fast enough? Are do you simply want to start reading faster because all those books are not going read themselves?
If your answer is yes, we’ve got a great tool for you to check out. It’s going to improve your reading skills. Plus, it’s fun. Our staff enjoyed it thoroughly, and that is not something you hear often about reading remediation! The name of the resource is Readfa.st. ‘Read Fast’ can be your personal trainer in the world of reading. Read more
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Practical College Classes: Use Them in Real Life, Find a Job! PART 3
College tuition, ludicrously high, and rising fast, makes it vital that our expenditures pay off. While it is lovely to be able to study something interesting but totally impractical, it may not be feasible in today’s economy.
We discussed in an earlier article the challenge of finding practical courses if you are enrolled in a liberal arts institution, and want to augment your transcript with something you can use.
We also began discussing community colleges and the job descriptions that are hot items these days.
Almost any subject in the computer field is likely to increase your employability, such as programming, software development, and network systems and data communications analysis. An Associate’s degree may be adequate, but this is a field where practical experience is crucial.
A part-time job in a computer store would be a boost as well, for two reasons. For one thing, the field is changing so fast that if you are not working with the cutting edge equipment, you are already behind the curve. Also, in the computer field, experience working with the issues and problems of the field is well-respected, and often required for employment.
As a bonus, taking computer courses that address the basic design of the machines, and the way that they ‘think”, can also help you understand your own computer, and save untold hours of frustration. Considering that most courses require the use of a computer, this can be a substantial boost for your other studies.
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Practical College Classes: Use Them in Real Life, Find a Job! PART 2
With the price of an education rising to ridiculous heights, making sure that the student realizes a return on this huge investment is becoming more and more critical.
In an earlier article, we talked about finding practical courses in a liberal arts institution where vocationally oriented courses are scarce. In this article, we will push the decision point back a bit, and look at your choice of institution to allow the greatest chance of taking useful courses for work and life.
The category of college that probably offers the greatest range of courses is the large state-affiliated institution. These mega universities offer everything from the arcane and impractical to courses that are almost on-the-job training. As recipients of substantial government funding, such universities are under an obligation to train the residents of the state in all the job descriptions that will be needed for the state to function and prosper.
This means that they often have departments, or whole schools, of agriculture, hotel and hospitality management, forestry, and allied medical professions. Most states have one very large campus, and many have satellite campuses, scattered throughout the state.
Historically, when teacher’s colleges and other small colleges, including some historically Black institutions, fell on hard times, they were incorporated into the state university system. This extended the reach of these universities substantially. Another outreach is the Cooperative Extension Service, which brings the resources of the agricultural department of a university into communities that would be too far away otherwise.
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