The history of a college usually influences what it is today. If it started as an agricultural school, it is likely to offer fields of study that relate to the science and business management of running a dairy, cultivating crops or preserving foods today. If it started as a seminary for women in a year when women did not typically seek advanced education, it likely has an emphasis on empowering women in the marketplace today. If it started as a health professions technical school it likely offers courses in the most advanced health technologies today. If it started as a teaching school that explored emerging practices, it likely is an education research center today. If it started as a research facility for robotics, it likely has robotics courses today. If it started as a training center for astronauts, it likely trains future astronauts today.

While some may find history a boring study, when it comes to choosing a college, it should not be neglected.

The story below is based on a true story but the names have been changed for confidentiality.

When Tawnya’s grandmother passed away after a long and painful illness it sent the whole family into a tailspin. Grandma had been the spiritual head of the family. She was the one that family members went to when they wanted advice or comfort. With Grandma gone the family stopped attending faith based meetings and stopped celebrating spiritual holidays. Family traditions were dropped. Tawnya’s mother became somewhat bitter. Her father became mildly depressed. And her sisters became somewhat withdrawn. But Tawnya was impacted most of all.

18 months after Grandma had passed away, Tawnya was in college and hours from home. Then Tawnya began to eat less. She found it hard to get out of bed in the morning. She lost her motivation for school. She took less care of her attire and grooming.

Amy was Tawnya’s friend. Amy listened to Tawnya day after day as she became more sad, more irritable and more unfocused in her school work and even in her conversations. Amy was interested in the medical field and so watched many documentaries and television dramas about medical topics. One day she watched a drama about a teen who was suffering from clinical depression. This prompted her to go online to look up “signs of depression”. She found a list like the one at http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/depression and realized that Tawnya was exhibiting nearly every sign of depression. She talked with Tawnya about this and asked Tawnya to tell her parents and to ask for help, but Tawnya did not act on what Amy told her. The next week Tawnya began to talk about wanting to be dead and having specific ideas about how she might take her life. This prompted Amy to call Amy’s mom.

Amy’s mom had worked in the medical field for years and quickly said, “Amy this is too big an issue for you to try to solve on your own. You need to involve a responsible adult from the college that Tawnya trusts.”
Amy contacted a favorite professor that both Tawnya and Amy liked and trusted. The professor agreed that it sounded like Tawnya was in trouble and committed to call Tawnya into her office to talk with her immediately.

When Tawnya got the call, Amy was in the room. Tawnya’s first response was anger. She asked Amy, “How dare you share my personal problems with someone else. I told you those things in confidence.”
However, Tawnya went that day to meet with the professor. The professor heard Tawnya out and then, while Tawnya was there, she phoned Tawnya’s parents.

Within that week Tawnya was seen by a mental health professional, diagnosed with clinical depression and started on anti-depressants. She told Amy that she was sorry she acted mad and that she was actually glad that Amy had cared enough to involve someone who could help her get better. Within two weeks, Tawnya was feeling better and showing more interest in eating, getting proper rest and doing well in school. Tawnya and Amy retained their friendship and Tawnya got involved in the crisis help line at school. When she tells her story, she talks about how important it is to get professional help for a friend who is suffering from depression even if it could mean the loss of a friend. Confidentiality and friendship are less important than saving someone’s life.

When choosing a college it is also important to consider living arrangements. Some schools require students to live on campus for at least their first two years while other schools have more students who commute from home than who live on campus. Some schools require first year students to live in dormitories while other schools allow for students to live in off-campus apartments. Some schools only provide housing for single adults while other schools provide housing for married couples and families.

Then there is tremendous variation in on-campus options. Some dormitory buildings have a kitchen and dining room in the building. Most have separate buildings for dining. Some have cooking facility within the building, others allow some cooking in the rooms while some require that all cooking occur in separate buildings. Some dormitory rooms house one student, some house two, some house three or four or more. Some are single sex as a whole building, others are single sex by floor and others are mixed on a floor. Some rooms have their own bathroom, some share a bathroom between two rooms and some share a bathroom for a full floor.

Then there is the Greek system. Sororities and fraternities vary so much in housing, study, storage and dining space that it is important to visit each one under consideration.

There is also extreme variation in architecture, layout and age of buildings. Sometimes within a single campus it is possible to choose from a neo-gothic castle-like dorm to a modern cement structure to an on-campus cottage that can be shared with people who have common worldviews or lifestyles.

When choosing a college it is helpful to list your top priorities and then to contact students who are at the schools you are considering. Most colleges have students who are happy to respond by email to questions from prospective students. Then when you learn of a school that has housing options that meet most of your top priorities, it is very helpful to go visit the school to check out the facilities for yourself.

Once you are accepted to a school, you can then list your housing preferences. You are not guaranteed of getting your first choice, but doing your homework and knowing your reasons for your housing preferences will help you get closer to what you want than if you don’t consider these things.

When choosing a college it is also helpful to look at all the courses that are available on campus. In this article I will focus on courses that will be outside of your major. This is because I’ve already addressed courses that would be in your major in the article titled “Degree Programs Offered“.

While your main priority may be to choose a school that will support your career path, it is also important to look at the school’s course catalogue to identify courses that you would want to take for pure fun. For example, one of my friends knew she wanted to be a pre-med major, but she also loves music and outdoor activities, especially swimming. So, she chose a school that had a strong music program including band and also had swimming courses and a swim team and a marine biology minor. While at school she then took all the pre-med courses plus scuba diving and marine biology and even got to swim with whales in the Florida Keys for a course that occurred over Spring Break and swim with another type of whale in the San Juan Islands in Washington State during a summer college course. Now that friend is graduated from college and from grad school and working at a job in the healthcare field that she loves, but she will be the first one to tell you that her work colleagues are more interested in her stories about swimming with whales in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans than in which experiments she did in her pre-med classes.

So while a college education should help you attain your career goals it also can provide you with refreshing activities that make for fun stories for the rest of your life.

Identity theft happens regardless of gender, age or ethnicity. In fact, a growing target is among university students.

Many people turn to identity recovery programs once they have become the victim of identity fraud. Or they may attempt to “clean up” the incident themselves. However, there are companies out there, such as ID Theft Assist, that have your back – not just when you or your family get hit but also prior to any id theft mishap. For just over $7 a month, you and your family can have the protection you need.

There are many identity recovery programs available. However, not all offer the same services so it’s important to look into what they provide. Do they file a criminal report and forward the report to creditors? Do they help replace your credit cards and id cards? Do they report fraud to social security administration? Do they assist with obtaining a real-time credit report? Do they offer cash advances? Do they cover your family members? ID Theft Assist offers all the above and more.

ID Theft Assist covers you and your family before and after any identity mishap. They provide unlimited phone support and in-person emotional trauma support that their competitors don’t offer. They actively monitor your credit and alert you of activity prior to any incident.

ID Theft Assist is worldwide with representatives in over 200 countries. Plus they provide language translation services.

For more information about this service, visit http://www.studentassistanceplan.com/idtheft.php.

Many students around the world are experiencing Dead Week this week. (Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_week for a definition of Dead Week.)

For those students who have been working steadily to get big papers and projects done in increments, Dead Week can be a relatively painless and somewhat amusing time. But for those who have procrastinated or let other priorities get in the way of the big projects, it can be a very stressful time including sleep deprivation, caffeine overloads, hair pulling, nail biting and anxious thoughts.

Each college and university has its expectations and traditions for this week. At my school professors do not assign large projects to be due this week and classes do not meet this week. It is a time to finish work and study for exams. At other schools a scheduled or unscheduled campus-wide Primal Scream allows students to release some tension.

Most schools offer quiet spaces for study during this week. In some schools the quiet space is the library only while other schools make quiet in the dormitories and living residences the rule.

The key to successfully surviving this week is to know your own best study practices. Some students need quiet, whereas others need some background noise. Some prefer to study individually while others find that their memory is better when group discussion is involved. Typically, large projects are best accomplished by working through them one stage at a time. However, there are always those students who do their best work when under pressure. Knowing your own learning style, taking care of basic needs (food, water, and rest) and then building in some tension reducers like a walk about campus or a Primal Scream session will help you get through this difficult week.

If you have chosen a private college the next thing to consider is whether it should be secular or religious. This decision is up to you. In a college that has its roots based in a religious tradition you may be provided with a place to go deeper into the theology and history of your faith. Whereas with a secular college you may be exposed to more diversity in world views. At a religious school there is typically a common ideology that is shared by staff as well as the student population.

In a secular campus you may be given more freedom to do as you wish. At a religious campus more restrictions may be placed on your behavior, for example there may be only single sex dorms and minimal visitation time in the dorms of the opposite sex.  In secular campus alcohol could be a normal thing. In a religious campus it likely to be a dry campus.

A secular campus will usually have a more wide array of majors for you to choose from than in a religious school. Yet if the major you want is specific to a religous school then that school might be the best option for you.

These are just some of the factors that you might want to consider before choosing a particular type of school. Though there are many more factors that you must put into consideration, do the research and then apply!

Another thing to consider when choosing a college is whether you want to attend a private or a public school. One of the best articles I’ve found on this topic is at http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000294.htm.

Even though the private university I have chosen to attend is 1.68 times more expensive ($32,000/year room, board, books and tuition) than the flagship state university ($19,000/year room, board, books and tuition) in my state of residency, it costs me and my family less to go to the private school because the private school awarded me a full-need scholarship. So I am going to the more expensive school for less cost than it would have been for me to go to the best public school in my state. Plus the private school has the subjects I want to study and none of the public schools have these same subjects. For me it was a win-win to go to the more expensive private school.

Another factor to consider when choosing a college is its reputation.  One of the best known sources of information regarding college rankings is the US News and World Report annual Best Colleges report.  To see the report for 2010 visit http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges. In 2008 Forbes magazine also began publishing an annual list of “America’s Best Colleges”.   Other published sources of college rankings are listed in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_rankings.

Another method of evaluating the reputation of a school is to seek out people who are working in careers that you find interesting and then ask these people which schools would best prepare someone to work in that career.

It is also helpful to know what terms like “Ivy League” and “Sevens Sisters Colleges” and other sports related terms like “PAC-10″ mean because some people define college reputation by the divisions in which the sports teams play.

Finally, another strategy is to visit the school and see what students, faculty and community members have to say about the school.

The better you understand the reputations of the schools you are considering, the better you will be able to choose one that will be the right fit for you for the full length of time that it will take to get the degree you desire.

The next factor to take into consideration is the size of the school you want to attend. Whether it be a small college in a big city or a big college in a small city, I will do my best to help you make your decision a little bit easier.

Now, if you are looking at a small college located in a big city you will notice that the student body is a very tight knit community. The less people the more chance to create lasting friendships. Another benefit you will notice is that everything is close together and public transportation can take you there, so you most likely won’t need a car. Being in a big city also means that it’s populated with many diverse shops, foods, and people. On the flip side, it may cost more than other colleges because smaller colleges typically are private and more expensive.

If you want a big school in a big city, like the University of Washington in Seattle, it’ll be easy for you to travel around the city. You will also experience a large and diverse student body with students of all ages from all over the world. The bad part is that you will have to work harder in your first few years of school to acquaint yourself with your professors because class sizes in core undergraduate courses are quite large.  Once you’ve established yourself, though, the larger school will provide you the small group experience in your upper class years and into graduate school, because as you progress, the courses will become more specialized and the class sizes will be smaller.

A small school in a more rural environment such as Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine or John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas can provide you with a peaceful place for you to study and focus on your major in a tight knit community.

A large school in a more rural environment such as University of Massachusetts, Amherst can provide you with big school activities such as Division I level sports in a historic scenic community.  Like the large school in a large city it will have large class sizes in the core courses of the early undergraduate years but more opportunity to progress into a wide range of smaller class size specialized courses as you progress.

As you consider school size, it is important to take into account whether you perform better in small or large classes, whether you want to compete in Division I level sports or smaller school teams, whether you want a city or rural environment and how much diversity you want in subjects to study and in student and faculty populations.

The better you know your needs and preferences related to school size, the easier it will be to identify your top choice schools.