The first time I asked myself that question I barely had to think about it. I was already going to college and I was going to a good one. I got into UCL, described as a “British Ivy League university.” I met interesting people, I had a great time, and through it all I even had time to study and write essays, which are the basic elements of a History degree. Why ask “Why College?” when things are proceeding as people expect and life is good? I did not feel the need to answer that question at any length.

The second time around was different. I thought about the question "Why College?" a lot – I had to.

Due to a unique convergence of personal circumstances, I left university in London on my own terms. When I came back to the UK a year later, I landed in the middle of a tough recession with half a degree. Despite my alumni card and warm recommendations from well wishing professors, I was under-qualified for positions that a graduate should have been able to get, as I had not graduated.

I was deemed over-qualified for almost everything else. Try putting that you did two thirds of a degree from a leading college on your resume and then apply for jobs at a hedge fund or think tank – or for the contrast, your local Wal-Mart or gas station. Such a state of limbo closes many doors everywhere.

And so I learned one of the very important answers to “Why College?”: a college degree opens doors that are otherwise shut, and can help you reach your professional aspirations.

Of course, college is not just about the degree: studying and spending hours in the library, extra-curricular activities, gaining wide-ranging transferable skills like effective communication and analytical skills, and meeting new people, making connections, and building insurmountable friendships are just a few of the wonderful aspects of the college experience. Still, as I painfully learned from my brief occupational malaise in between university stints, a college degree is an incredibly valuable asset to possess in your quest to achieve your career dreams – or, really, just to get a job.

Dominic Tarn
London, United Kingdom

The author is a history major at the University of Westminster. He is the Editor of The Orient News, a Middle East focused publication, and currently works for Santander Bank. He studied at UCL from 2005 to 2007.

Utilize study guides
The week before the final, ask your professor if a study guide will be available for the final. Guides are extremely helpful because they are virtual roadmaps of what the final will entail.

If and when you do get them, focus most of your studying efforts towards the review guides. If professors are going to the trouble of making a review sheet, they are doing it to guide your study efforts.

Visit review sessions
Similar to study guides, if a teacher or TA holds a review session, it is because they want to help you with your studying. When you go to a review session, come prepared with questions, and know what areas you need help with.

If a class does not hold a review, try to organize one with other classmates. While you won’t have any insight about what will be on the final, combining all of your notes can do nearly as good of a job. It also will help you make sure that you didn’t miss any key information during the course.

Get adequate sleep
This should be a no-brainer, but it is very tempting to pull an all-nighter and cram all of your studying in the night before the test. It doesn’t matter how much information you studied if you are falling asleep during the test. Sleeping is the best way to ensure that you are focused and coherent during finals.

Know how to work an alarm
This last bit of information is in regard to something that happened to me in my freshman year of college. I had a Saturday 8 a.m. final (which is ridiculous for a college student), so I set my alarm for 7 a.m. I thought that I had set the alarm for 7 a.m., but unfortunately it was set for 7 p.m.

I woke up at 8:55 a.m., and sprinted to class. While I had time to complete the test, my rhythm was completely thrown off, and I performed very poorly on the test.

So remember to prepare as much as possible beforehand, and double-check that your alarm is set correctly.

Last week, a group of state school superintendents, governors and educators jointly proposed the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI), a new criteria for American K-12 public schooling in math and English, to include such requirements as literary analysis for 5th graders and a heavier focus on logic for 7th grade math. Today, the New York Times noted that CCSSI may bring about textbook rewrites, new training methods for teachers and a second look at how standardized tests operate in America, among other changes. However, the article notes that some states' public education systems aren't as bad as the rest of the country, and they may be hesitant to change what's already working for them. While these are not federally-ordered standards by any means, the group hopes to garner enough credibility to get states to jump on board simply because of merit.

Overall, I think this initiative is great, as it's a clear demonstration of action on the part of a lot of hot air that's spewn about U.S. public education shortcomings. Plus, CCSSI has not yet been finalized in order to give the public the opportunity to comment and give feedback on the new standards via the Council of Chief State School Officers' and National Governors Association's websites.

However… I'll start by sounding off here. What about implementing real-world skills into core curriculum classes for K-12 students, such as completing your taxes? Surely those analytical skills, logic and problem-solving capabilities . Or how about getting a mortgage? Understanding dense text among mounds and mounds of paperwork is critical to surviving as an educated adult in a bureaucratic society, and our public education system should prepare students for adult life using the same skills already being learned in math and English–among other–classes.

The bar for public education needs to be raised, yes. But I suggest taking it one step higher to increase the relevancy of what students are learning in the first place.

The Library.

A Shangra-Li for all things written, recorded, or documented, the typical prospective student should not discount the quality of a particular school’s library when deciding upon where to spend the next four years. Most tour guides will take their groups through the library’s entrance, guide them through one of the study lounge’s and then lead the group of out the library to ensure that there is time for the remaining sights on tour.

What most prospective students do not realize is that they will be spending many weekday, and weekend evenings, and early morning hours in the library working through chemistry problem sets, writing final papers for the Philosophy 101, or simply rehearsing group presentations. So as a prospective student, it makes sense to head back and explore one of the places you will probably spend more time in relatively to your own room. When evaluating libraries (or multiple libraries, as there are colleges who feature more than one library on campus grounds) here are few points to consider:

• Library Hours: During my first two years at Oxy, the library was only open until midnight Sunday through Thursday, and until 10 PM on Friday and Saturday. For the few times that I planned on working through the night to complete a paper, it was an inconvenience to pack up my stuff, and find another place besides my dorm to continue the night’s work. Fortunately, at the beginning of my Junior year, Occidental College instituted 24 hour library service Sunday through Thursday. At many larger universities, it is standard for the library to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Study Space: Most libraries offer a wide range of spaces to complete your work. From long tables shared with other studious peers, to individual desks located in the quiet, isolated, corners where there is no cell phone reception or WIFI, you are bound to find a location that best resembles your current studying set-up.

• Size: Not all libraries are the same—ex: The University of California at Berkeley’s main library (which happens to be one of several libraries on campus), with its museum-esque reading room, and Occidental College’s one and only Mary Norton Clapp library. It should be intuitively obvious that larger schools would offer students multiple libraries, or as Berkeley calls them, Affiliate Libraries, where as smaller schools might provide students with one, main library, with a few major-based libraries  about the size of a standard class room, housing related journals and magazines.

What makes your college’s library stand out from the rest? As always, feel free to share your two cents below.

Exercise common sense and caution wherever you go.
I’ve heard horror stories of college students getting scammed by online deals to go to Mexico or somewhere else for spring break for some sort of deal that turns out to cost double or something along those lines. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Someone else I know decided that signing up for his first credit card would be a great way to pay for a long-distance travel ticket, but quickly ended up with several hundred dollars in debt. And of course, any kind of travel opens up room for unhealthy behavior and accidents. Be careful, be sensible, and make a point to have fun without getting hurt. As I learned from some interesting post-break stories that circulated around campus, what happens in Vegas doesn’t actually stay in Vegas.

Consider an “alternative” Spring Break.
More and more, colleges are offering short-term opportunities to do volunteer work during the week of vacation. Many students from my school went to New Orleans to rebuild houses with Common Ground. Larger universities have centers for social justice or community work, like the Center for Social Justice at Georgetown University, which can provide relevant information and even coordinate groups of students for alternative Spring Break endeavors. Although I didn’t volunteer with Common Ground during Spring Break (I went during the last week of a winter vacation), I can vouch for the fact that short-term, immersive volunteer experiences can be extremely worthwhile.

Explore the area around your college.
You know that restaurant/bar/museum/gigantic music store that you always pass and mean to check out? Spring Break is an excellent time to explore the area around your college and do all the things you normally wouldn’t have time to do. For me, this meant excursions to the famed Rodeo Drive and spending time at the beautiful Huntington Library. I recommend using a city exploration website like Yelp.com to plan an awesome Spring Break without ever having to fork over cash for a plane ticket or a hotel room.

So what are your plans, Spring Break-ers? Exotic travel plans, seeing friends, or maybe catching up sleep and backlogged reading?

This post will be short and sweet.

How does a college student even pick professors? Most classes students take during freshman or sophomore year are offered in a variety of different sections, which include an offering of different professors and class time/days of the week. While public college budget cuts may be lowing the amount of sections offered per class, it's likely that most say… English 101 sections will have several professors from which to choose. (Note: Not all college-level instructors actually have the formal title "professor" attached to their name, but for the intent and purpose of this post, "professor" will be used.)

Say you're looking at different Monday/Wednesday noon-1:00 sections for English 101 for your freshman year. You can choose between professors White, Steltzman or Varjay. Who the heck are these people? What can I really tell from a last name alone? Worry not… you have tools to avoid picking at random! Here are some ideas.

1. Ask students who've been there. Sophomores and juniors who've been through the general ed marathon will likely have strong opinions on professors they've taken. Graduate students are a good bet too, as they might have colleagues who teach your classes or even teach one themselves.
2. RateMyProfessor.com — The ultimate resource for subjective, bare-faced testimonials of college professors. You can search by either last name or school to pull up student-written professor reviews, ranks and ratings from everything from helpfulness to a chili pepper "hot" factor.
3. E-mail professors. Especially if you've never met her or him, shoot a quick e-mail introducing yourself as a prospective student and asking for more information on the class. Not only will the professor be impressed by your initiative, but you'll get a good sense of their teaching and e-mail style. E-mail correspondence with professors is becoming a growing trend, even for freshman college students.

Hint: To find professor e-mails, simply find the "Directory" page on the college's Web site.

This is also the case when it comes to required classes, for a major or minor; but, you can find a way to survive, and succeed in the class.

So if you leave the first lecture in fear or disgust, know that there are ways to endure this tough situation

Use the TA

If you have a professor whom you find insufferable, consult the TA for further help.  If you have a discussion section, it can be a great way to get clarification on difficult or confusing material.

When I took Statistics in my freshman year, I could not stand my professor.  She moved through the material far too quickly, and her strong accent caused me even more confusion.

Fortunately, my TA was fantastic, pretty much saving my grade in the class.  His discussion section made the material understandable, and his one section more valuable for me than the professor’s three lectures.

Go to the office

In a big lecture hall, professors can seem larger than life.  But remember that they are people too, not figures to be afraid of.

All professors have office hours, and most will make appointments to accommodate your schedule.  Talk to them, because they want to help you.  Even if their lectures are excruciating, they are likely approachable one-on-one, and it is worth a visit if you need help.

I took my first upper division class in my sophomore year, and my teacher was extremely difficult.  Her lectures contained more information than I could process, and her homework assignments were very difficult.

But when I finally got up the courage to visit her office, she helped me with the subject matter, and remained patient with me.  So don’t be afraid or intimidated, because they want to help you.

And if/when you do visit office hours, make sure you are polite, no matter how insufferable their lectures may be.

If anyone else has advice on dealing with difficult professors, please post below.

Most of my extended family lives in Los Angeles, so the first time my parents visited me after I’d started college was actually for Thanksgiving. For some reason I became totally fixated on organizing my desk to the extreme—like that was how they were going to know that I was okay and doing well in school. Suffice to say that my dad took one look at my array of pens and pencils, meticulously arranged in order of color, and knew that I had put way too much extra effort into the situation. Oy.

Tidy up—but don’t individually Windex the blinds.
I think that everyone—from the cleanest of the clean to the biggest slobs—makes some sort of extra effort when parents are going to visit their current abode, whether it’s a dorm room, apartment, whatever. Make the bed, vacuum, pitch the beer bottles, but nothing is worth freakishly scouring the tub or anything else that adds extra pressure to the impending visit. And I did individually clean my blinds for my most recent parental visit. They didn’t notice. What a waste of 12 antibacterial wipes.

Share your new life.
At first, I didn’t want my parents wandering around my dorm or stopping for a snack at an on-campus eatery. I felt protective of my new life on campus and had a hard time realizing that they weren’t looking to judge my laundry facilities or quality of food. They just wanted to see what I was doing and how I was adjusting to college life. Parents care, worry, and frequently fret, and a simple lunch on campus so that they see that their kids are eating more than fries and Easy Mac can go a long way. Over the course of my college career, I showed my parents around campus, introduced them to people I knew as we passed them, and revealed one my super secret library study spots (I figured my secret was safe with them).

Own your choices.
My parents were a little confused when, after spending half of high school as the editor of my school newspaper, I decided to pass on even applying to work for my college newspaper. In my first two years of college, I really tried to explore as many different experiences as possible, whether it was trading in newspaper editing for middle-school mentoring or pondering a switch from my intended major (which I did end up doing).

I think that after working so hard on college applications for so long—which, as we well know, involves a great deal of planning for the future and stating life dreams and goals—I was ready to just explore and not measure everything in terms of “the plan.” This was hard to explain to my parents, who just wanted me to do well, and I had to let them see that I was happy sampling some of what college had to offer. The thing is, I did ultimately join the staff of my college newspaper. By that point, however, I did it because I wanted to, not because anyone else thought I should. Parents are supposed to worry-and college students are supposed to explore and figure these things out for themselves.

So how did your family's first campus visit go? Any advice…or crazy stories?

Here are some highlights of the big role community college plays in California alone:

• Nearly 3 million California students attend community college.
• Half of all Cal State students and 30% of UC students attended community college.
• Community colleges are California's number one provider of workforce training (especially for jobs that require technical skills, but not necessarily a bachelor's or higher degree).
• An increasing amount of low-income students, laid-off employees, returning veterans, parents and adults seeking a career change attend community college.
• Community colleges receive the least amount of funding compared with every other educational institution, despite increasing enrollment (which will continue, as no student is turned away from community college).

However, the article takes a step back to widen the scope of the argument for these two-year institutions. Noting that they shouldn't expect to simply receive free money for admitting leagues and leagues of students, these schools must step up to the challenge of funneling more of these students toward actual college degrees.  Currently, the massive, growing numbers of attendees have lowered the rate of community college students who eventually receive degrees to under one-third.

Perhaps if community colleges were valued more as an an integral part of our system of higher education, these numbers would rise. However, it's unrealistic to assume that these colleges can increase four-year transfer rates and improve overall performance without financial support. It's a constant push and pull, and hopefully the greater reliance on community colleges during tough economic times (and this sweet three-part series) has pushed the issue closer toward the spotlight.

If community colleges are a prime gateway to the degrees necessary for a robust, forward-moving American workforce, I'm all for it.

This article on community colleges is part of a BetterGrads series on two-year colleges. To read last week's post on the role of community colleges amid nation-wide public education budget cuts, check out last week's post: Community College Part 2 — A solution to budget cuts?

And so it was during the spring of my junior year in high school that My Dad and I decided to take a road trip and visit some schools in the area who had been so kind to send us boiler-plate introduction letters. This time, "in the area" referred to schools beyond the city limits of Los Angeles, namely UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Sonoma Sate, and UC Santa Barbara.

Below you will find some observations and tips from our trip should you choose to visit some schools during your spring break.

Call Ahead, but not before 11 AM

On the first day of spring break, my Dad and I left our house in the suburbs of LA at 5:30 AM hoping to arrive at UC Berkeley in time for an 11:15 AM tour. We also planned on meeting up with a family friend's daughter, a rising senior, to get an inside perspective on the heralded bay area university. Her father told us that we should not call her before 11 AM, as, "most college students do not wake-up until noon." We thought he was joking until we called Jessica at 10:55 AM only to hear a groggy, half-conscious voice on the other end. While the "noon rule" does not apply to all college students, the best way to avoid any faux-pas is to confirm a visit a few days ahead. Because a non-groggy, well rested college student makes for a much better host / hostess.

Surprises everywhere

Even when your college friend gives you a high level overview of what you he / she plans on doing with you or showing you, be prepared for a surprise or two along the way. One of the most memorable moments occurred when visiting Sonoma State's admission office. My Dad and I were having a lovely chat with one of the student workers when the conversation transitioned to our weekend plans. Some how the student worker mistook my Dad for a prospective student too. Puzzled, we continued chatting as if we thought nothing of it.

Later that night we drove down the 5 freeway to UC Santa Barbara,  where I linked up with my buddy Jared (we played for our high school's volleyball team). Though he was two grade levels ahead of me, we managed to keep in touch after he graduated from high school. My dad and I joined him for Shabbat services at Hillel. After dinner, Jared took me to his frat house. We arrived around 10:00 PM and did not leave until 2:00 AM. I will spare the details but can share that there were a lot of people dancing in the backyard and one creepy exchange student who tried to make small talk. The key takeaway from this experience was that I was able to see and experience the collegiate social scene in full and spend some time catching up with a close friend

So, can Cancun and kick Key West. Spending spring break looking at colleges will make for a more worthwhile and rewarding experience.