According to the US Census Bureau, more than 500,000 high school seniors leave their homes for college each year. The freshman year of college is an initiation into independent living, but it can be incredibly stressful. It is estimated that almost 150,000 students will dropout before their second year. Everything from the cost of living on your own to the stress of trying to balance a job, school, and a completely new kind of social life will weigh heavily on any new college student. This book arms students with everything they need to survive that initial year of independence. This book has it all, from organized scheduling to time management to weight gain. The average student gains ten to fifteen pounds in the first year of college this book contains practical advice on how to balance a slim budget with a healthy lifestyle. Many hours of interviews have helped to compile a comprehensive list of studying and living habits that will keep you locked in and on target throughout your college career. You will learn how to juggle homework with your social life as well as the dreaded major change. If you want to ace your first semester, be the life of the party, and maintain a sharp focus, then this book is for you.

Read award-winning journalist Frank Bruni's New York Times bestseller: an inspiring manifesto about everything wrong with today's frenzied college admissions process and how to make the most of your college years. Over the last few decades, Americans have turned college admissions into a terrifying and occasionally devastating process, preceded by test prep, tutors, all sorts of stratagems, all kinds of rankings, and a conviction among too many young people that their futures will be determined and their worth established by which schools say yes and which say no. In Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be, Frank Bruni explains why this mindset is wrong, giving students and their parents a new perspective on this brutal, deeply flawed competition and a path out of the anxiety that it provokes. Bruni, a bestselling author and a columnist for the New York Times, shows that the Ivy League has no monopoly on corner offices, governors' mansions, or the most prestigious academic and scientific grants. Through statistics, surveys, and the stories of hugely successful people, he demonstrates that many kinds of colleges serve as ideal springboards. And he illuminates how to make the most of them. What matters in the end are students' efforts in and out of the classroom, not the name on their diploma. Where you go isn't who you'll be. Americans need to hear that--and this indispensable manifesto says it with eloquence and respect for the real promise of higher education.

PARENTING NEVER ENDS. From the founders of the #1 site for parents of teens and young adults comes an essential guide for building strong relationships with your teens and preparing them to successfully launch into adulthood The high school and college years: an extended roller coaster of academics, friends, first loves, first break-ups, driver’s ed, jobs, and everything in between. Kids are constantly changing and how we parent them must change, too. But how do we stay close as a family as our lives move apart? Enter the co-founders of Grown and Flown, Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington. In the midst of guiding their own kids through this transition, they launched what has become the largest website and online community for parents of fifteen to twenty-five year olds. Now they’ve compiled new takeaways and fresh insights from all that they’ve learned into this handy, must-have guide. Grown and Flown is a one-stop resource for parenting teenagers, leading up to—and through—high school and those first years of independence. It covers everything from the monumental (how to let your kids go) to the mundane (how to shop for a dorm room). Organized by topic—such as academics, anxiety and mental health, college life—it features a combination of stories, advice from professionals, and practical sidebars. Consider this your parenting lifeline: an easy-to-use manual that offers support and perspective. Grown and Flown is required reading for anyone looking to raise an adult with whom you have an enduring, profound connection.

The guide all college graduates need as they embark on life in the real world Graduation is a time of tough questions whose answers we don’t—and sometimes can’t—know the day we receive our diploma. Determined to power through the uncertainty of post-graduation, bestselling author Katherine Schwarzenegger embarked on a yearlong quest to gather the best guidance possible from more than thirty highly successful people working in fields like business, media, fashion, technology, sports, and philanthropy. Along the way, Katherine uncovered the essential and often surprising advice they have for graduates, including answers to questions like: • How do I find my first job in a tough economy? • How do I decide between a career that pays well and one that I’m passionate about? • How do I balance work with friends, relationships, and family? • Should I take a “gap year” before starting my first job? • What should I do about my student loan debt? Drawing on the stories and real-life experiences of contributors such as Anderson Cooper, Eva Longoria, Blake Mycoskie of TOMS shoes, Lauren Bush Lauren, Andy Cohen, Meghan McCain, Gayle King, and more, Katherine has written the must-have guide for recent and soon-to-be graduates as they prepare to seek success and fulfillment in their work, relationships, and lives.

The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America’s colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations.

Now revised and updated, this guide offers incoming college freshmen the experience, advice, and wisdom of their peers: hundreds of other students who have survived their first year of college and have something interesting to say about it.