One of the many problems that students face while living away from home is their unhealthy diets they live on. Many students find it annoying or find it too expensive to eat a healthy meal and therefore resort to fast food and junk food because it is cheap and easy to get and clean up after.

Many students don't have the normal schedule as they used to have while they were in grade school. They don't have a time mandated to them for when they can eat breakfast and lunch and don't get out of school by 3 so they can eat dinner at home. In fact most college students have very ugly schedules depending on what classes they are taking this semester or quarter. Some classes begin at 8 in the morning and others start at 7 in the afternoon and end at 9 at night.

Because of these timeslots are all over the place a college student can not always find the time available when they usually eat their meals. For many students they have a problem of just trying to get the classes they need to take for that quarter or semester so they try to take the classes for the time slot they have free to the best of their convenience but that can conflict with the time when a student usually eats their meals interfering with their diet.

Students who are used to eating at around noon seem to have trouble accomplishing this simple task because they might have a class during that time period or they just finished one class and are heading to their next one. Feeling hungry a student might end up buying a quick bite to eat at a vending machine or from a fast food vendor during their small interval break. Grabbing fast food once in a while isn't all that bad but many students now resort to this method of getting food into their system because of the simplicity and quickness.

Because of the excess of junk food and fast food entering their system a student's diet becomes more and more unhealthy the more they rely of fast food and junk food to curve their hunger. Not only is it bad for your body it doesn't contain the necessary ingredients that a person may need to properly function.

Supplements are one way to fill in the gaps but they are an unhealthy way to maintain one's diet. And they are also pretty expensive. It may be cheap if you look at it long term, but you still need to pay it all at once. Paying fifty or sixty dollars for a bottle of supplements may seem a lot of money to many students who have to support themselves.

Also many students fall victim into the trend of relying on fast food and junk food because of the plain fact that they cannot cook for themselves. Which isn't all that surprising because for the first eighteen years of their lives most students have had someone else supply the meals for them and it was up to that person for what kind of food entered their bodies.

One of the ways to counter this problem is probably learn to cook and appreciate a good and healthy meal but that requires time and money to learn such a method.

Not all the writing is on the wall, some of it is also on the notice board. Summer jobs wanted, tuitions available, second-hand laptop for sale, brand new mobile phone lost and found — the college noticeboard is quite the silent chronicler of the life of the student community. But at a time when hundreds of youngsters cross over to the virtual world every day, the notice board is at best a blink-and-you-miss item. And cashing in on this virtual defection is online notice board searchmycampus.

Brainchild of Peyush Bansal, 23, the site was launched last December and has found earnest following among students who are using it to exchange information on everything from accommodation, to car pools, to buying and selling books, bikes, notes, furniture, mobiles..

The genesis of searchmycampus lies in Bansal's experiences at a Canadian university where, he says, he virtually lived on streets, with no clue about accommodation. "I went to McGill University in Montreal at 18, against my parents' wishes. I faced a lot hassles in settling down in the campus. So, when I retuned to India I decided to create this online campus board that would provide students a platform. I believe that only students can solve the problems of other students."

By way of homework, after returning to India in October 2007, Bansal spent a lot of time traveling, meeting college students all over the country to understand their problems. Co-founder of the site and student of Indraprastha University, Delhi, Parit Gupta, 21, also helped him. Chetna, a student of Sri Ram College of Commerce, points out that besides not having time enough to look up the college notice board there is also the problem of “torn notices.” She has recently put an ad on searchmycampus with a request that someone lend her a copy of Eric Seghal's Love Story.

Kanika Saraff, a first year Economics student of Hindu college, also posted an ad seeking a summer job and was pleasantly surprised when she got a good response. She says, "Most outstation students like me do not know whom to approach for various things such as a good accommodation or summer jobs. This campus board will fill this gap."

Besides facilitating intra-college communication, the website also promises to create better inter-college communication channels. Take the case of aspiring musician Romi of Delhi University, who wants to form a band. 'I am a lead singer looking forward to establish a band, but not able to find good guitarists and drummers. Anyone interested may contact me', says Romi's post.

Ankit Khirwal is one of many DU students who are actively promoting the online campus notice board. He says, "I spend a lot of time tracking down all important notices on campus boards in various colleges and post them here. I believe there is so much that students can do for each other through this website."

A part from Delhi, the site is getting popular in campuses in other cities such as Bangalore, where students are also offering lots of gadgets such as, iPods, Laptops, Handsfree, DVDs with pictures of the stuff they are seeking to sell, their price and a note of on their condition. "The student-oriented online campus is quite innovative. Students from all over the country can post their queries on the site; it has the potential to replace the college notice board in the future," says Tosha Koshi, who is doing her masters from Christ College, Bangalore.

Bansal says he wishes to bring together the community of 11 million college going students in the country under the umbrella of SearchMyCampus. He says, "This may not be as cool as various social networking sites, but it will surely be highly useful. Now I want to create a category where students can share their emotional problems too, campus life is all about sharing and caring for each other."

When you first begin college, life can be difficult at times so it is vital to have some "university student survival tips" to ensure that you enjoy college life or at the very least, survive it. Obviously, money is going to play an important role in your survival and you need to make sure that you save enough to pay for the essentials before spending it all on enjoying college life.

Most students live in shared accommodation for part of their college life. This can be the first time that many students have had to share their living space with non-family members and how you deal with this can really be the difference between an enjoyable or a hellish college life. The most important point to remember is that you need to develop some boundaries with your roomies. Everyone needs to have their own space and this is a guaranteed way to ensure that you survive college life. If you ensure that you have some time to yourself to catch up on your studies it will mean that you are free to enjoy the more pleasurable sides to college life without resenting the people that you live with. Of course everyone has their own standards but as long as you make sure that you clear up after yourself then it will make college life easier although you cannot change those around you.

College life means that you will meet lots of new people but don’t let this affect your relationships with family and friends back home. You may be away at college for a number of years but remember that you had a life before college life and you will have one afterwards too. Keeping in touch with people outside of college also helps you to have a support network if college life becomes too much at times.

There are no hard and fast rules to settling in to college life but you do need to give it a chance. If you enter into it with a negative outlook and rush back home every chance you get then you will find it harder adjusting to college life. It is also true that some of the best parts of college life happen at weekends so you don’t want to miss out on these opportunities.

College life can be so exciting that you may forget the important things like getting enough sleep. You are going to want to go out and enjoy yourself but it is important that you do catch up on your rest at regular intervals so that you can concentrate on your studies occasionally!

The official university ranking list that is published every year lists the top colleges in the country, however these lists don't go over many important issues to a student. Luckily there are several college ranking guides that are published by actual college students. The most accurate form of ranking colleges places a high importance on student happiness. College students grade their university based on a number of different factors, not just academic qualifications. This type of college ranking process reflects the opinions of current students and recent graduates and is not influenced by the institutions. If you search the internet you will find sites where students have given a college ranking based on criteria such as:

* Parking
* Safety and Security
* Academics
* Athletics
* Campus Dining
* Campus Housing
* Transportation
* Weather
* Campus Strictness
* Computers
* Diversity
* Drug Scene
* Off-Campus Dining
* Off-Campus Housing
* Facilities
* Girls
* Greek Life
* Guys
* Local Atmosphere
* Nightlife

These different aspects of college life all have varying levels of importance for a prospective student and the college ranking for one area may not be of interest but having them broken down into the individual categories allows a student to investigate the college ranking that is of interest to them and not just an overall ranking.

For example, a student without a car will not be interested in the college ranking for available parking facilities but would be keen to find out about the transportation available in the college area. An art student may not be concerned that their first-choice college does not have high speed internet access in the dorm rooms but a computer major would class this as essential.
Female students are more likely to be concerned about a college ranking for security on campus and be especially interested in the levels of campus police but may not be bothered if the school has a low college ranking for the football coaching.

Apart from visiting some of the college ranking websites and reading surveys conducted amongst students it is also useful to attend the colleges that you are considering before making a decision. This will enable you to confirm, or refute the claims made by the college ranking yourself and also offer you the chance to see if the college actually feels right for you before you accept a place.

Now that high school is over and you have freedom to choose among different careers, probably for the first time in your life you are to make the most serious choice you’ve ever faced. You go back and revise your childish dreams in your memory and try to find out where your heart truly lies. And when you do, the most exciting years of your life begin and you become a college student.

College is no place to play games and fool around. You are now to think about your future and what’s to become of you. First year students or just freshmen come to their first class with serious facial expressions, already thinking about a day when they get out into the open on their own, with serious educational background and some lessons of life they’ve had during their studies. But on the other hand college is perfect environment to have fun and socialize.

The atmosphere gives excellent opportunities to make new useful and interesting acquaintances and have fun doing various sports, cultural and social events. The more time you dedicate to university life the more popular you become among college elite.

Sophomore year is not less interesting than the freshmen year. Once you’ve got used to the ways in the university, know the procedure, have friends and hobbies and know how to have fun you feel perfectly well and ready to continue to do fun things you did before. Some of the fellows seem to forget about studies, but the system is serious and stable. In the dictionary of the dean there are no words "sorry" or "just a few more days".

The result comes real quick and in a day you are kicked out with unsatisfactory progress and a stamp of a looser for the rest of your days. Junior year is as much fun as it is serious. Being old and mature enough, we realize which direction to work in, to achieve everything that you’ve planned. Serious relations may start and distract your attention but studies are the only thing you’re focused on. Your college term paper fly to you in your dreams and when you hear sarcastic “unsatisfactory” you wake up all nervous and have insomnia till the rest of the week. How unwise. If you work hard enough, you’ll be duly awarded at the end of your studies. Senior year is the best one, time that you will never forget. This is time to relax for those who were wise enough to keep up with studies and time to focus for those who lost their heads among various chances to spend their time otherwise. Most probably they will turn to college term papers to fill in the gaps of their studies.

But when the last efforts are made and all the exams are left behind, you feel relief and burning desire to get started to whatever you were prepared for. And after it is all over and look behind your shoulder you ask yourself: is it gone, or has it just begun? Nothing can be changed in the past but there is a nice chance to start your life again, from the blank page to write a good history about a man/woman, who reached success and achieved acclaim.