Edgy

Students are always excited to go to college. They get to experience new things, learn who they are, and get to be on their own for the first time. Another thing they may be excited about is their college's random traditions. These traditions can range from good luck superstitions to congratulatory celebrations. No matter what though, there are some pretty strange traditions out there that some colleges have.

The annual Body Art Fashion Show at Brandeis University in Walthman, MA, is not so much about the clothes. Students get together and paint each other and their models using liquid latex paint. The fashion show is held every March and is put together by the Liquid Latex Club. It is one of the campuses most attended event.

Georgetown University in Washington, DC is the place to be on Halloween night. 'The Exorcist' is projected outside on either Copley lawn, or Gaston hall. The film is shown after dark until about midnight. Students then make their way to the cemetery to participate in the "Healy Howl", which means students literally howl at the moon while in the shadow of Healy Hall in the cemetery.

This next tradition is one that just about every college student wishes their campus did. Spree Day at Clark University, MA, is a day that may catch students off guard, but is a wonderful surprise. On a random day during the school year, all classes are sporadically canceled and students can enjoy live bands, and possibly hot air balloons out on the Green.

Students who study organic chemistry may find that around final times there is no way to relieve the stress. Well, Columbia University's marching band thinks otherwise. The Orgo Night is when the marching band goes into the Butler Library to relieve the stress the night before the organic chemistry final. The band goes into the library at midnight with the sole purpose of disrupting studiers to help relieve everyone's stress. This tradition is very popular on campus.

Death by Chocolate is more than a dessert at a restaurant; it is also one of Pomona College's traditions. Pomona College in Claremont, CA normally has a large line of students outside the Edmunds Ballroom for a pre-finals chow down. This tradition has been going on since 1987 and is the reason why some students attend this college. Students can expect to find chocolate covered strawberries, marshmallows, and pretzels, as well as chocolate cheesecake bars, chocolate cream puff, chocolate mousse, and white chocolate.

No matter what college you want to go to, they probably have all sorts of fun traditions. Some may not make sense, but as long as you are having fun, that's what matters. Ok, as long as you are having fun and getting an education that's what matters. If you have ever thought about not going to college, think of everything that you could miss out on. This includes fun traditions like these, and your degree. Having an education is important, but no one said you couldn't have fun doing it. Even some online colleges have their own wacky traditions.

By Katherine L Dane

"Big" - Assigned to the elders of a Greek organization.Becoming a "big brother" or "big sister" in a Greek organization denotes that you get to become a role model to a "New Member" or "Pledge". As a big, you essentially become their advisor throughout initiation and during their time in college. The bond between big and little is very special, and often times a lifetime bond is forged.

"Little" - In order to become a "big brother" or "big sister," you have to become a "little brother" or "little sister" first, and pledge to join a fraternity or sorority. While this position isn't an enviable one, especially when rushing, you get an older friend who can help you navigate the entire process of pledging. Some organizations allow you to choose your big or little. Other times it's randomly assigned. And sometimes, it's a little bit of both.

Pledgeship - The process of pledging is typically a six to nine month process, though it depends on the organization you're pledging. This is where you'll go through the process of becoming a brother or sister of an organization, including being paired with a big brother or big sister. You must complete this period of time in order to join the fraternity or sorority and become an official member.

Paddles - Paddles are traditionally an integral part of sorority and fraternity life, and are made by a "little brother or sister" and given to a "big brother or sister" within the organization. These wooden paddles are hand-painted and often contain the names of the big and little, along with the organization's crest, chapter, and colors. It's symbolic of the relationship between fraternity and sorority siblings, and is a cherished keepsake.

Lavaliere - (action) A necklace or charm of a fraternity that is given from a fraternity brother to his girlfriend, symbolizing his commitment to her. It also symbolizes the acceptance of the chapter. A man typically gives his girlfriend a lavalier prior to their engagement. It is considered a very special, sentimental gesture by both the fraternity and the girlfriend if she is in a sorority.

Pinning -This is where a fraternity brother "pins" his girlfriend with the badge of the fraternity, symbolizing his long-term commitment to this person, and most likely a precursor marriage. This is a time-honored tradition and symbolizes that a brother views his girlfriend in the same, if not higher regard, than his fraternity brothers. At times, this isn't always met with acceptance by the brothers of the fraternity but it also denotes the sacrifice and commitment a brother makes to his chapter.

One Greek Store offers Greek Apparel and merchandise, including Greek Paddles. They also offer Custom Greek Apparel. You can visit their Gainesville, Florida retail store or order online.

So, you're freshman in college and on the brink of a new world or identity at big out of state public university. You not only like it there, but love it. There's one problem. You can't seem to meet any girls or guys, better yet your future college sweet heart.

Yes, your college sweet heart. You know the person that you fantasized about on the regular or when you see them on campus you would go out of your way just to speak. I will share a few things that can help you find the perfect college girlfriend/boyfriend.

Meet as many people as you can. I like to call it networking, in which, I'm seeking to learn more about you without saying I want to know everything about you. Now, you have to be careful with this one because it can back fire if you're not careful. You must constantly think in advance all the time stay at least 50 steps ahead make sure he/she doesn't read your mail or texts doesn't see you phone history.

NEVER mix up the girls name history or anything and be careful of your so called friends if they know the truth! ALWAYS know who their friends are or who you see them with the majority of the time. That will allow you not to approach the wrong person who can ruin you plans.

Be Prepared to get rejected. I believe you can take a great deal of knowledge from the popular song from the movie Lion King, in which Scar sings, "Just listen to teacher I know it sounds sordid, But you'll be rewarded, When at last I am given my dues, And injustice deliciously squared. Be Prepared!" Sometimes being prepared means being at the right place at the right time or having knowledge of where that person will be throughout the day. I know it might sound like you're stalking them; however, you have a goal in mind.

You must always have a plan to meet the person you're pursuing and if it works out or if it doesn't work out, you can be at peace with knowing you gave it your all. I guess it just wasn't good enough. Now, you can move on and starting fishing again.

Take bold Risk. Try to create and establish solid relationships. You might even consider asking someone to go get lunch, but for some reason, it doesn't feel natural. It's not so much the nerves but it just doesn't feel like a good way to go about it and that's ok. Most students eat in the university cafeterias and we all know that seating is limited. So, that's your perfect opportunity to go in for the kill of introducing yourself and asking for that seat if it's one available.

You might also want to try meeting potential mates in your classes. You might be saying that it's too tough; the classes are so big; it's hard to make a real connection. That's the wrong mindset. Change the way you think and you'll realize that you will just have to be the smartest in the class or join the study groups with potential mates.

If you thought college was going to be super easy to find your sweet heart then think again. So if you're more than halfway done with your freshman year and I haven't even come close to find that person you should evaluate the approach you're using.

By Madison Miller

From College News - Spring in on the Way: Keep Grades Great!

It’s only February but already there are signs of college Spring Fever everywhere. It’s starting to get lighter; some of the trees are starting to look more cheerful. The first small little bulbs are peaking out of the melting snow. It takes mammoth amounts of WILL Power to stay in class and study once it warms up. Here are 10 tips to beat Spring Fever in college.

1. Ignore Spring as long as possible. Stock up on hot chocolate and turn down the heat. Study under the covers of a really cool college bedding and stay cocooned in bliss. Ignore it entirely.

2. Live a little! Run around like a banshee outside at least once a day enjoying the sunshine and the new warmer weather. Set the cell phone for 1 hour of fun and then go back to work.

3. Volunteer at a homeless shelter. Nothing makes staying in class look like such a good idea.

4. Hire a Budget Rent a Car and take a quick spring break somewhere south. This one proves motivating for some and counter-productive for others. Driving back IS part of the equation.

5. Put on a bathing suit in front of a really big mirror. Makes studying absolutely preferable to anything that might include wearing less clothing.

6. Move you deadlines forward and finish those papers now while it is still cold. Once all the work is done you can relax and enjoy spring. Huge hint: Don’t turn papers in early. No need to give the professor extra time to find fault with what you have written and give you a chance to improve on it.

7. No caffeine, cold turkey. Cuts the wonderful right out of Spring- and everything else.

8. Join a Zumba class. Many cute girls to impress and it’s indoors.

9. Open the windows and air out your dorm room at least once a week. It improves the air somehow and makes it easier to focus.

10. Give in to pass/no pass. Just sign up in time!

From College News - Although it is not a common occurrence in all sororities/fraternities or even all campuses, hazing is a serious risk that seems to escalate with each passing year.

As StopHazing.org defines it, hazing “refers to any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status in a group) that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person's willingness to participate.” Although hazing can involve relatively harmless activities, it can also escalate quickly and cause harm and humiliation to those involved. StopHazing.org also uses the NCAA’s definition of hazing as "any activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses or endangers, regardless of the person's willingness to participate. This does not include activities such as rookies carrying the balls, team parties with community games, or going out with your teammates, unless an atmosphere of humiliation, degradation, abuse or danger arises."

Hazing is performed as a form of initiation when a new member enters into an organization and can occur in both fraternities and sororities. Typically, alcohol is involved, but physical abuse and sexual abuse can also be included.

Although sororities and fraternities are very important parts of the college experience, you should not hesitate to speak up or speak out against any hazing activities that may occur. If you find yourself in the midst of hazing, especially where someone’s well-being is at risk, don’t be afraid to call 911. Paramedics and law enforcement will be on their way to respond to the problem and this is the quickest and most effective way to shut a hazing episode down.

You should also report any instances of hazing to the Dean of Students or the Dean of Men/Dean of Women. They will take immediate action to investigate the hazing incidents and may even put the perpetrators on probation. Also, if your campus has a Dean or Director of Greek Life, submit a formal complain to them as well. Greek organizations do not condone hazing and they, too, will be quick to investigate.

Remember, do not be afraid to leave or report a hazing situation. Hazing should not be a part of sorority or fraternity life.

From College News - One student's story of Greek rejection.

At eight-years-old, I remember hanging out in my brother’s fraternity house. It was a rickety old house with decaying walls, chipped paint and a pungent aroma of soured milk and aged garbage. I loved it so much that right then I declared one day I was going to join a sorority and live in a house exactly like that one.

When it was time for me to narrow down my college choices, Indiana University fell into the number one spot. Besides their great journalism program, they had one of the largest Greek systems in the nation. It was a prefect fit.

Within a few weeks, I had made a great group of girlfriends from my dorm floor. I couldn’t wait for the recruitment process to begin; I knew my new friends and I would all end uup in the same sorority.

It was the day after our last rush party, and our rush counselors were handing us our bids. One by one, I watched my friends go into a room and walk out with grins on their faces. It was my turn. My heart was pounding. This was the moment I’d been waiting my whole life for.

I anxiously opened the door and sat wide-eyed in from of my rush counselor. Her face was sullen, and eyes blurred with tears.

“What’s the matter?” I asked with concern.

“I dont’ know how to tell you this -- there’s no easy way, so...here.”

She handed me a thin envelope with my name typed on the front.

“It’s thin,”  I said nervously. “Thin isn’t good.”

Like a Band-Aid, I ripped it open. It read: “We regret to inform you that we could not place you in a sorority.”

“But I’ve wanted this my entire life,” I stuttered through sobs, “can’t we tell them that?”

“This is the biggest flaw with the Greek system. There are so many girls who want to join sororities, but not enough sororities to support them. Sometime when you don’t know someone, you fall through the cracks. Even if you happen to be a great girl, which you are.”

I nodded. I pretended to understand, but I didn’t. I knew in my heart I wanted to be part of the Greek system more than any of those other girls. Didn’t that count for anything? She leaned over and hugged me tightly. “I really am so sorry. You can always rush again next year.”

Next year. That’s when it hit me. I had just watched all my friends get accepted into their sororities of choice. Next year, they’d all move into new homes and build new friendships and start new lives. What about me? Where would I live? Who would my new friends be?

The most intense pain was the ache of rejection. Wasn’t I pretty enough? Smart enough? Did I not own the right clothes? I felt humiliated, like all my bad traits and unattractive qualities had been nit-picked and put on display for everyone to see. I’d spent 19 years trying to build my self-esteem and in one instant, it plummeted.
The next day was brutal. All the freshmen girls were told to wear their lettered sweatshirts so the entire university could see into what sorority they’d been accepted. Everywhere I looked there were girls in letters; it seemed like everyone had gotten into a sorority, but me.

I carried the hurt around for months. My pride and sense of worth had been squashed. But even so, I realized something incredibly important; something that not only got me through college, but also gets me through every day of my life. Things don’t always go as planned.

We can spend our entire lives thinking things are supposed to happen a certain way, and when they don’t, if we’re too focused on the couldas and shouldas, we miss out on what actually is there.

I am gratfeul for my college experience. My social calendar was always packed, I discovered my passion for writing and I built great relationships with intelligent professors. I may not have had the college life I always dreamt of, but that’s okay. Because the one I had was even better.

By Marissa Kristal

Dian and Tom Griesel offer tips for health-conscious students

Newswise/Business School of Happiness

If you polled students at any college or university, chances are one of their top complaints would be connected to diet.  Everyone’s heard of the “Freshman 15,” and even when students are trying to eat well, it can be a challenge when time-intensive studies—and a thriving social life—translate into less-than-ideal food choices. 

“Add to the mix the easy availability of fast food restaurants in the vicinity of most campuses (and sometimes on campus itself!), and the result can frequently be weight gain among the student population,” say boomer generation health experts Dian Griesel, Ph.D., and Tom Griesel, authors of the new book “TurboCharged: Accelerate Your Fat Burning Metabolism, Get Lean Fast and Leave Diet and Exercise Rules in the Dust” (April 2011, BSH).

Dian and Tom offer the following tips for health-conscious college students:
• Eat fruits and veggies at every opportunity.
• Skip the “nutrition” bars—they are fat/sugar combos that do not exist in Nature, and will pack on pounds fast.  They won’t fill you up, but you’ll be consuming 200+ calories per bar.
• Drink water—especially first thing in the morning.  You are dehydrated!
• Walk as often as you can—and load up your backpack!  The extra weight will build leg and butt muscles that are the greatest calorie burners.
• For every beer, drink of wine, shot, or whatever your alcoholic beverage of choice—drink an eight-ounce glass of water!. This will help keep you hydrated and satiated, and slow the effects of alcohol on your metabolism.
• Eat a large salad at least once daily, and skip the creamy dressings that make that salad go from skinny to fat.
• Don’t worry if you are not “working out.” Walking, cleaning your room, dancing, playing any sport—all count as activities and burn calories. You don’t need to be in a gym.

About TurboCharged: TurboCharged® is a groundbreaking 8-Step program that defies common weight-loss theories. It successfully delivers body-defining rapid fat loss, accelerates metabolism, and improves health and odds of longevity without gimmicks, supplements or special equipment. Common sense and a desire to be lean are all that is required for success at any age. For more information, log on to http://www.turbocharged.us.com. Please follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/turbochargedUS and Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/diangriesel.

From College News - Students will have to pay for citation and substance-abuse counseling.

University of Wisconsin-Madison students will be faced with hefty fines if they are found drinking while underage.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports that, beginning this semester, university officials are imposing a fine and substance-abuse counseling for underage drinking or alcohol violations. That is, substance-abuse counseling that the student will have to pay for out of pocket.

Typically, an underage drinking citation courtesy of the Madison Police Department costs $263.50. Add to that the cost of two group sessions ($78) or two one-on-one sessions ($200) of substance-abuse counseling, and the student in question is left with considerably less money in his pocket.

The program is called BASICS (Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students). Tom Sieger, prevention director at University Health Services, calls the program an “educational intervention.” He estimates about 800 to 1,000 students will participate in the program per year.

By Janelle Vreeland

From College News - Smoke-free policies spread across college campuses.

Colleges across the country are putting an end to smoking on campus. This summer, the University of Kentucky was just one of the more than 500 college campuses that invoked a 100 percent smoke or tobacco-free campus policy as of July 1.

Despite the 46 million smokers in the U.S., the number of colleges to adopt the smoke-free policy has largely increased in recent years. A large amount of the policies’ success can be contributed to grass-roots efforts made by students and campus-employees. “They [the policies] typically are coming about because students and faculty are questioning the role of tobacco in an educational setting and deciding to discourage its use and exposure,” American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation Project Manager Liz Williams said to CNN. She continued to say that in the past year, 120 campuses were added to the smoke-free list.

Smoke-free campuses gained significant popularity during the early 2000s. According to CNN, Ty Patterson, former vice president of Student Affairs at Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Missouri, says he started the first smoke-free campus in 2003. Upon discovering that there were no higher education institutions that had implemented a smoke-free policy, Patterson developed his own system violations for any student or faculty member that did not comply with the campus rules regarding smoking. In its first year, Patterson’s policy was successful – only two students received multiple violations.

Since the development of the no-smoking policy, other schools have had success in implementing their own smoking guidelines. After three years of research, the University of Michigan passed a smoke-free policy. The school’s Chief Health Officer Dr. Robert Winfield told CNN that since the ban it has become uncommon to see smokers around campus. Common smoking areas were checked and there “wasn’t a smoker in sight.”

Not everyone is in support of the ban, however. Many believe that enforcing a smoke-free environment infringes on people’s rights. Jonathan Sternberg, an attorney fighting the city-wide smoking ban in Springfield, Missouri, told CNN that smoking bans “just don’t really make sense.”

The University of Florida went tobacco-free in July and Valencia College in Orlando intends to enforce the policy starting in 2012. Patterson predicts that all colleges will be 100 percent smoke-free in 10 years. Many are confident that no-smoking policies will continue to make progress.

Since the negative affects of smoking were made aware, smoking has become “socially less acceptable,” Laura Talbott-Forbes chairwoman of the health association’s Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Coalition, told CNN. “There’s a very health-conscious, socially aware student that we have on campus these days.”

By Molly Huscroft