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Challenge: Being an Informed Student
1. @Your school. Whether you're attending a community college, vocational school, online college or university, you should check for your school's Twitter feeds. Many departments--as well as the professors themselves--tweet.
2. @MyCollegeGuide has been dishing up free college advice for 20 years and does a great job re-tweeting a variety of college resources.
Tweet: "6 Awesome #College Planning Tools"
3. @Knowledge4Us tweets how-tos, biographies, and explanations that dovetail nicely with college-level curriculum. You'll also see the occasional piece of helpful tech advice, such as deleting items from Google Search.
Tweet: "Summary Writing Tips: How to Summarize Contents Effectively"
4. @USATodayCollege is information that may affect your college experience. Did you know bad professors tend to rate highest on student evaluations?
Tweet: "Is realignment going to ruin sports at your #college?"
5. @NewGradLife can help you keep the goal of post-grad life in mind as you learn what to look forward to after college.
Tweet: "#College Grads - student loan payoff tricks"
Challenge: Staying Up-to-date on News, Politics, and Pop Culture
1. @CNNBRK can help ensure that you won't miss any global disasters, corporate scandals, celebrity deaths, or political upheavals just because you've got exams.
Tweet: "Country music artist, sausage entrepreneur Jimmy Dean has died at age 81 at home in Varina, Virginia."
2. @BarackObama: regardless of your political views, if you want to posit the best argument in both campus and online class discussions, you're better off to have political news from the horse's mouth rather than the news syndicate, often accused of being another horse part.
Tweet: "There is no doubt that today's job numbers show another month of private sector job growth. We are not going back--we are moving forward."
3. @Digg_2000 aggregates a hodge-podge of user-submitted articles that sometimes get missed by more traditional media channels.
Tweet: "Man Busted by Traffic Camera Gets Unique Revenge on Police"
4. @Time Magazine is a, well, timeless kind of news source of global issues, politics, and popular culture that is polished enough to impress your significant other's parents or your grandparents at the next family gathering.
Tweet: "Is lithium Afghanistan's answer?"
5. @CBSMoneyWatch may help you to avoid the insane amount of debt common to today's college students and to learn what to do with your money, once you make some.
Tweet: "Financial Tips for College Grads"
Challenge: Surviving the College Lifestyle
1. Tweet Reminder is a tool for Twitter allows you to input important events, such as not-to-be-missed tweetcasts, and have a reminder tweeted to you.
2. @LifeHacker has all sorts of tips--often technological solutions--for surviving life, not just college.
Tweet: "Kayak Explore Shows You Where You Can Fly for the Money in Your Budget (and More.)"
3. @FreebiePrincess can save you money on the things you might need, like a new computer, cheap gifts, and reduced rate tickets to Six Flags.
Tweet: "Wal-Mart slashes price of Apple's 16GB 3GS iPhone to $97."
4. @TheRules offers inspirational nuggets of advice that might just get you through a class, a date, college, or any number of life's uncomfortable situations.
Tweet: "If you can't sing good, sing loud."
5. @MyStudentBody aims to empower students and colleges through an informational campaign about drugs, alcohol, and wellness.
Tweet: "STUDY: Binge Drinking Doesn't Affect Next-Day Test-Taking, but Does Influence Attention."
Challenge: Including Good Ol' Fashion Fun into Your College Life
1. @OMGFacts are fun facts that can be useful in social situations to prove you've learned something while in college.
Tweet: "Despite having much longer and more flexible necks, giraffes have the SAME number of neck vertebrae as humans--7!"
2. @PerezHilton can serve as your guilty pop culture pleasure and a reminder that at least one person with a BFA degree in theater made a great paying career out of drama and celebrity.
Tweet: "Why do some artists (like #MIA now and #MGMT before) feel the need to rebel against their commercial success by making music that sucks?"
3. @SomeECards are slices of witty and fresh (albeit sometimes inappropriate) humor that will clue you in to upcoming holidays and current events and will encourage you to send a similarly witty and fresh e-card to anyone you're missing, neglecting, or mostly avoiding while you focus on your education.
Tweet: "Simple and selfish tips for Memorial Day weekend!"
4. @NiftyDateIdeas has great ideas for dates and social outings that won't cripple a student budget.
Tweet: "Have a paper airplane-making contest."
5. @MoreJokes is great for a clean laugh. Or groan. Tweet: "5 out of every 3 people have trouble understanding fractions."
Twitter, for college students especially, can be a powerful and helpful tool for achieving academic and social balance without losing touch of all that's happening in the world. Because of the brevity of each message and because of the growing number of people and organizations that tweet, Twitter makes it possible for you to easily handle these four challenges of college life in a very short window of time.
About the Author
JoVon Sotak is a writer, community journalist, and photographer who enjoys living in the middle of nowhere. Her work has been featured on a variety of websites and throughout Nevada.
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