Being broke is, in many respects, a key fix­ture in col­lege culture.

Every stu­dent has that story about liv­ing off of jam for a week and most col­lege grad­u­ates have devel­oped a strong aver­sion to Ramen noo­dles by way of their col­lege experience.

This Goodwill shop­ping, scroung­ing for cash men­tal­ity though, is some­thing that I am see­ing less and less. With the sup­posed “neces­sity” of cell phones, $300 mp3 play­ers and clothes that have that pre-worn look for a new-sticker price I have to won­der how stu­dents are com­ing up with all this spare cash.

Answer: Many of them are charg­ing it. (more…)

A belch is a pretty sin­cere “I love you”

There are many ways to mea­sure the progress of a rela­tion­ship, but what about the first belch?

The first date, the first kiss and the first up-all-night con­ver­sa­tion are all points in the rela­tion­ship time­line that every­one plots in bold.

I pro­pose that there exists an alter­nate sys­tem one can use to chart out their rela­tion­ship progress — the “Bodily Function Indifference “ (BFI) model.

The BFI model is based off of the will­ing­ness to per­form bod­ily func­tions in front of your sig­nif­i­cant other. The “ick­i­ness” and “grossi­tude” of the BFI model is sur­passed only by its accuracy.

Consider the period of time when two peo­ple are just start­ing to get to know each other. Everyone has been in this sit­u­a­tion and knows it feels cru­cial to make just the right impres­sion on the other per­son. Every lit­tle sneeze, cough, itch and gur­gle are care­fully mon­i­tored and forcibly suppressed.

As two peo­ple get more and more com­fort­able with one another and are will­ing to dis­close that they are, in fact, human beings that do do these things, the occa­sional belch might get let loose or even the dreaded toot. There are a cou­ple of fac­tors that affect the BFI model though.

One of these is gen­der. It may be a stereo­type but the like­li­hood to “cut loose” def­i­nitely increases if one hap­pens to be a mem­ber of the male gen­der. There are excep­tions to every rule though and every­one has that female friend who can belch like a hag­gard old sailor.

Another fac­tor that affects the BFI is one’s gen­eral will­ing­ness to do these things at all, or what I call the social niceties effect. For exam­ple, some peo­ple will never be able to will­ingly “break wind” in front of another per­son no mat­ter how com­fort­able they become. These peo­ple excuse them­selves to the bath­room and pre­tend to wash their hands or something.

So, some cou­ples get to the point where they will pee with the door open, while oth­ers never will because it is just not in the person’s nature.

Another con­sid­er­a­tion is how funny the bod­ily func­tion is at the time of its emis­sion. Burping at a fancy French restau­rant is cause for embar­rass­ment and social ten­sion, but doing so while hang­ing out and watch­ing a foot­ball game might war­rant a high-five, laugh­ter or even thun­der­ous applause (depend­ing on the cal­iber of the belch). Another clas­sic exam­ple and com­mon social phe­nom­e­non is “the stinky ele­va­tor.” I am pretty sure I don’t have to explain this one.

Thus, the next time you are won­der­ing how your rela­tion­ship is pro­gress­ing refer back to the BFI model. How for­giv­ing your sig­nif­i­cant other is of your flat­u­lence is a clear-cut indi­ca­tor of how much they care for you and how com­fort­able you are with one another. If you really love your boyfriend/girlfriend, let ‘er rip!

Unnecessary gen­eral edu­ca­tion require­ments delay grad­u­a­tion and detri­ment stu­dents’ pocket books

The col­lege expe­ri­ence offers a great oppor­tu­nity, to tra­di­tional and non­tra­di­tional stu­dents alike, for per­sonal growth and enrich­ment. Key courses in a student’s pro­gram, like cal­cu­lus for the math­e­mat­ics major, offer use­ful knowl­edge that will aid them in fur­ther stud­ies and valu­able skills which may land them a job or an internship.

Every under­grad­u­ate pro­gram how­ever, is lit­tered with courses that meet gen­eral edu­ca­tion require­ments such as global con­scious­ness or crit­i­cal think­ing. Many of these courses are of lit­tle ben­e­fit to the stu­dent as they can be irrel­e­vant to the individual’s future career. Often times, these filler courses make obtain­ing a degree a more timely process and, con­se­quently, a more costly one.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ web­site, the aver­age time it took to obtain a bach­e­lors degree was 55 months for those grad­u­at­ing in 1999–2000 (nces​.ed​.gov). This is about 4.6 years. I can only spec­u­late that this fig­ure has been at best main­tained. It is more prob­a­ble though, this fig­ure has increased con­sid­er­ing that grad­u­a­tion require­ments have become increas­ingly dif­fi­cult to meet.

Many would argue that these gen­eral edu­ca­tion courses, though offer­ing no spe­cific skill or knowl­edge one might prob­a­bly uti­lize, enrich the per­son by teach­ing them life lessons like crit­i­cal think­ing and work­ing as part of a group.

Skills are not unique to these inap­plic­a­ble classes. One can eas­ily get this kind of expe­ri­ence in a course that will be vastly more impor­tant in their career or education.Further-more, one could acquire this same type of expe­ri­ence dur­ing an intern­ship, an oppor­tu­nity that is infi­nitely more valu­able than a one-semester course that will prob­a­bly be lost to mem­ory in less than a year.

Some unneeded classes may be detri­men­tal to a stu­dents selected pur­suits. A pro­fes­sor may not asses the impor­tance of the courses they teach in rela­tion to how this knowl­edge will go on to ben­e­fit the stu­dent. Because stu­dents com­monly lack the expe­ri­ence and insight to know what courses may actu­ally be use­ful to them in the future, they may allo­cate their time in a very unben­e­fi­cial way. Effort that could be spent toward some­thing extremely use­ful is then lost for­ever. I think I can speak for most stu­dents when I say that pri­or­i­tiz­ing my study efforts has less to do with what will be use­ful to me after col­lege and more to do with which exam is next on the calendar.

If a pro­fes­sor over-inflates the rel­a­tivism of their course, regard­less of intent, the stu­dent only stands to suffer.

This is not to say that courses com­monly defined by these require­ments are not ben­e­fi­cial to some. Individuals tak­ing courses purely out of inter­est likely find many of these courses fas­ci­nat­ing and do not view them as mere hur­dles that need be cleared on the way to a degree. For stu­dents who are ded­i­cated spe­cific field of study how­ever, courses that lie out­side of their cho­sen scope rep­re­sent prob­lem­atic obsta­cles that cost them time and money.

Life is fair, if you are lucky enough to be thin

The impres­sion we make by our phys­i­cal appear­ance may or may not be by choice. People observe some phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tic and then, either know­ingly or not, asso­ciate per­son­al­ity traits with the ones they can see.

Neon hair and facial pierc­ings com­monly con­vey non-conformity. Those who wear glasses are asso­ci­ated with the char­ac­ter­is­tic of intel­li­gence. There are other bla­tant aspects of appear­ance though that are not cos­metic and can­not be so eas­ily changed.

Height, skin color, and gen­der are accepted as unchange­able aspects of a person’s phys­i­cal appear­ance, and, as such, soci­ety has deemed it unac­cept­able to attribute per­son­al­ity traits based on these fea­tures. Unfortunately, body weight is not included on this list.

Body weight seems to be the last phys­i­cal aspect against which our soci­ety and laws deem it per­mis­si­ble to be discriminatory.

Currently, there is no fed­eral law mak­ing it ille­gal for employ­ers to dis­crim­i­nate on the basis of weight. Only one state, Michigan, has laws against this.

These laws, or rather lack thereof, do not strictly con­cern occu­pa­tions where size could affect per­for­mance. This means that it is entirely legal in any state besides Michigan for employ­ers to deny an appli­cant because they don’t like fat people.

If body weight was indica­tive of job per­for­mance, I sup­pose that I could not fault an employer for doing what is in the company’s best inter­est. However, a recent study out of Michigan State University found that, con­trary to social stig­mas, over­weight work­ers were not lazier, more emo­tion­ally unsta­ble or harder to get along with than their “nor­mal weight” colleagues.

“Previous research has demon­strated that many employ­ers hold neg­a­tive stereo­types about obese work­ers, and those beliefs con­tribute to dis­crim­i­na­tion against over­weight work­ers at vir­tu­ally every stage of the employ­ment process, from hir­ing to pro­mo­tion to fir­ing,” said Mark Roehling, the scholar who headed the research.

With the past year serv­ing as an excep­tion, I had been obese my entire life. As I began to lose weight, I noticed changes in the way I was treated by oth­ers. The minor things are the ones that I have noticed the most, like more pass­ing smiles on the side­walk and more doors being held open for me. I have to won­der though, why I am sud­denly now more deserv­ing of social niceties.

I can say from expe­ri­ence, that with every pound I lost, I was treated with more kind­ness and respect from peo­ple I did not know.

What I have come to think is that the main­te­nance of social stig­mas regard­ing weight has to do with the idea of fault. Most peo­ple would agree that los­ing weight is dif­fi­cult and some may even rec­og­nize that there may be a genetic pre­dis­po­si­tion to obe­sity. Many of these same peo­ple would still find a per­son “at fault” for being above the ideal weight.

This then leads to a line of thought that since a per­son is at fault, or they “choose” to be over­weight, then it is accept­able to judge them for a choice because it is some­thing that they could con­trol or change.

I can say defin­i­tively that no one wants or chooses to be obese. No one would ever choose to be treated with less dig­nity, respect and love by their fel­low human beings on a daily basis.

Losing weight is one of the hard­est things a per­son can do and is there­fore not some­thing one can read­ily or sim­ply change. It is unfair that neg­a­tive stig­mas are still asso­ci­ated with body weight. Personal atti­tudes toward body weight being allowed to affect one’s right to fair treat­ment how­ever, is far, far beyond unfair.

The legal­ity of dis­crim­i­na­tion based on weight is unciv­i­lized, une­d­u­cated, uncom­pas­sion­ate and unjust.

An album ripped straight from the imag­i­na­tion of its quirky cre­ator, Imogen Heap’s “Ellipse” is a must listen.

“Ellipse” was released in late August by RCA/ Megaphonic and is Heap’s third major solo album.

What struck me the most at first was the huge vari­abil­ity between tracks. “First Train Home,” the first track on the album, has a great upbeat pop back­track which is melded with Heap’s light airy voice over the top.

The track “Canvas” has a dark drawn-out syn­thetic organ that mixes with her voice. Both the vocals and the back­track­ing on this song are dark, mys­te­ri­ous, and powerful.

My per­sonal favorite track on this album has to be “Wait it Out.” It starts out as a pseudo acapella piece, with her own voice in the back­ground singing some inter­est­ing sup­port­ing har­monies. The song also slightly show­cases her skill as a pianist. But the lyrics were what made me want to put the song on repeat.

“And lack­lus­ter, in dust we lay around old mag­a­zines. Fluorescent light­ing sets the scene for all we could and should be being in the one life that we’ve got.”

The song builds to a great crescendo and ends qui­etly with some ambi­ent sounds and syn­thetic har­mony with a sound that gives me a men­tal image of a warm pli­able alu­minum tube.

One of the great­est fea­tures of this album is that an instru­men­tal ver­sion of each track is included. This is per­fect back­ground music for read­ing or studying.

Compared to Heap’s pre­vi­ous two albums, this one has more radio playa­bil­ity. Many of the songs are sim­ple, fast-paced, and inter­est­ing lyri­cally. I think that Heap may dis­ap­point some of her long time fans though, as the con­struc­tion of some of the tracks lacks the com­plex­ity of those in her pre­vi­ous albums. This is par­tic­u­larly appar­ent in the vocals.

Overall, this is an excel­lent album. I would rec­om­mend it to any­one and espe­cially to musi­cians who can appre­ci­ate some of the less appar­ent aspects. I would warn long-time fans though to be pre­pared for a poten­tial let-down, as “Ellipse” is a lit­tle less com­plex com­pared to her last album. “Speak for Yourself.”

High tuition costs do not adver­tise the idea of oppor­tu­nity to me

Being seeped in deal­ings with the university’s 125 anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion has helped to famil­iar­ize me with the ideals that FSU was founded upon. I think that one quote by our founder does a par­tic­u­larly good job of encas­ing these ideals.

“My plea in Michigan — and it will be my plea to the last breath I draw, and the last word I speak –is edu­ca­tion for all chil­dren, all men, and all women of Michigan, all the peo­ple in all our states all the time.”

Woodbridge N. Ferris founded FSU with the inten­tion of mak­ing edu­ca­tion avail­able to all. “Opportunity” is one of the core val­ues of the uni­ver­sity, both his­tor­i­cally and in pol­icy – but is it being upheld in practice?

As an under­grad­u­ate stu­dent with my eyes on a seat at the Michigan College of Optometry (MCO), I was pre­pared for a high tuition cost. I knew that school was going to be expen­sive no mat­ter where I chose to go but MCO was my first choice regard­less of tuition costs.

After get­ting my tuition bill, I was a lit­tle shocked. Wasn’t Ferris State University founded on the idea that every­one deserves edu­ca­tion? According to the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry’s web­site, “Annual tuition and fees at pub­lic schools and col­leges of optom­e­try range from approx­i­mately $12,000 to $20,130 for residents.”

My tuition bill exceeds the upper bound for this range. I can­not help but feel that though this money is well spent and I know MCO is the best school for me, that the fact that the cost is above aver­age goes against the core idea of opportunity.

I need not point the fin­ger of blame on any one pro­gram how­ever, since even the tuition cost for under­grad­u­ate stud­ies lies above the national average.

According to College Board’s Web site, “aver­age pub­lished tuition and fees for in-state stu­dents at pub­lic four-year col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in 2008-09 are $6,585.” This is $2,895 less than FSU’s esti­mated aver­age tuition cost pro­vided by the col­lege online.

The seem­ingly yearly hike in tuition prices to an amount greater than the national aver­age does not rein­force the ideals that this col­lege was founded on – specif­i­cally that of “opportunity.”

Another point that is worth con­sid­er­ing is the university’s admis­sion stan­dards for its under­grad­u­ate pro­grams. In 2002 the min­i­mum GPA for admis­sion was changed from 2.00 to 2.25 and the min­i­mum ACT from 13 to 15 (cer­tain pro­grams hav­ing dif­fer­ent program-specific requirements).

It was con­sid­ered at the time of the change, though how this might con­flict with the founder’s ideas. And venues for stu­dents falling below these new stan­dards were put into place. I am not sure how well these options are pro­moted or how vis­i­ble they are as it has been quite some time since my fresh­men ori­en­ta­tion. I do hope though that prospec­tive stu­dents that might oth­er­wise be deterred from apply­ing can eas­ily learn and access these options.

Ferris State University was founded by a great man who believed that edu­ca­tion was the right of any man or woman who sought it. I do not think that higher than aver­age tuition costs as well as the recent raise in admis­sions stan­dards reflects this principle.

Big Rapids History has played an impor­tant role in shap­ing FSU

As the uni­ver­sity cel­e­brates its 125th anniver­sary, the Ferris com­mu­nity reflects upon its his­tory. Many events will be tak­ing place through­out the year to honor the school’s roots and the peo­ple, events, and places on cam­pus that have helped to mold FSU into what it has become today.

Entwined with that his­tory, but per­haps not so heav­ily stressed, is the story of the city of Big Rapids itself. The city has a unique and inter­est­ing story to tell and has changed and grown along­side the uni­ver­sity dur­ing these 125 years.

The exact “found­ing date” of the City of Big Rapids is a lit­tle con­fus­ing, as the area was orig­i­nally called Leonard. The name change occurred in 1859 but, name aside, the first set­tlers came to the area in 1851. The area’s offi­cial incor­po­ra­tion as “The City of Big Rapids” took place in 1869.

During the roughly 15 years between the estab­lish­ment of the city and the found­ing of Ferris College, the city grew con­sid­er­ably in size due to the boom­ing log­ging indus­try. This occurred despite a huge fire in April of 1869 that burned down a large por­tion town.

Many sites within the city proper, and town­ship of, Big Rapids are reg­is­tered his­toric sites with the Michigan History Division of the State of Michigan.

One of these sites is the Old Mecosta County Jail located on Stewart Street. The jail was built in 1893, just nine short years after the found­ing of Ferris State College. According to the State of Michigan’s web­site, the build­ing is “the old­est pub­lic struc­ture in the orig­i­nal plat of the vil­lage of Big Rapids,” and was used as the county jail and sher­iffs res­i­dence until 1965. Each year around Halloween, the Jail is trans­formed into a “Haunted Jail.” Many Ferris Students are involved in the process as well as local busi­nesses and organizations.

A trip to down­town Big Rapids will lead you to a few more reg­is­tered his­toric sites. The Nisbett Building, which houses the large clock tower, began con­struc­tion in 1885. Daniel F. Comstock, who orig­i­nally financed the huge project, went bank­rupt soon after. The build­ing remained half-finished until in 1900 when William P. Nisbett bought it from the Michigan Trust Company of Grand Rapids.

The Nisbett build­ing is one of the more notice­able down town build­ings due to its clock tower and large gran­ite pillars.

Located diag­o­nally from the Nisbett Building on the cor­ner of Maple and Michigan, lies the orig­i­nal site of the first per­ma­nent site of the uni­ver­sity, the Northern Bank Building. Now the site of Fifth Third Bank, this build­ing and many oth­ers in the down town area, were used by the col­lege in its infancy as class­room space.

As the University has grown it has drawn stu­dents, fac­ulty, and other mem­bers of the Ferris com­mu­nity from all through­out the state of Michigan and beyond. Though the asso­ci­a­tion to Ferris is easy enough for these new mem­bers to make, it may be less sim­ple to draw a last­ing tie to the com­mu­nity sur­round­ing it.

It may help to remem­ber that Ferris State University was orig­i­nally to pro­vide the peo­ple of the area with the oppor­tu­nity to learn and grow. It has a rich his­tory that is directly con­nected to that of the city of Big Rapids. The ties between the school and the local com­mu­nity, past and present, are impor­tant, rel­e­vant and interesting.

If you are inter­ested in learn­ing more about local his­tory you can visit the Mecosta County Historical Society museum located at 129 N Stewart Ave.

Frivolous lit­i­ga­tion is alive, well, and as ludi­crous as ever.

Warning: area near bot­tlenose dol­phin exhibit may be…

Correct, most peo­ple would assume that the area around the per­form­ing bot­tlenose dol­phin exhibit to be wet. Zoogoer Allecyn Edwards, how­ever, is not one of these peo­ple. Edwards filed a $50,000 law­suit against the Brookfield Zoo on Aug. 20 for a slip and fall she took near the tank in August of 2008.

More ridicu­lous than the fil­ing of the law­suit itself is the detailed claim of the suit. In the claim, Edwards says the zoo, “reck­lessly and will­fully trained and encour­aged the dol­phins to throw water at the stands mak­ing the floor wet and slippery.”

If you are already scratch­ing your head at this point I would urge you to stop, as her the claim gets even more inane.

Edwards fur­ther asserts that the zoo, “failed to pro­vide warn­ings of the slip­pery floor,” and “failed to pro­vide mats when the staff knew that the floor would get wet and slippery.”

Under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, I think Edwards’ claim does “hold water.”

Edwards must have never before been to or even heard men­tion of an attrac­tion like this in her past expe­ri­ences. She also must have had no idea that in places like zoos or those akin to Sea World it is com­mon for guests arrive early to shows of this nature to get the seats near­est to the tank for the spe­cific pur­pose of hav­ing the ani­mals splash water on them. Edwards must also be unfa­mil­iar with the nature of water and how it has the ten­dency to reduce fric­tion between two sur­faces, which may then increase the risk of slipping.

Is per­sonal lia­bil­ity for one’s own actions com­pletely a thing of the past? Perhaps it is no longer the respon­si­bil­ity for indi­vid­u­als to assess assumed risks when going about their daily activ­i­ties. It must be that the owner of one’s instan­ta­neous where­abouts is account­able for that person’s well being.

Instances of friv­o­lous lit­i­ga­tion may make great water-cooler con­ver­sa­tion, but they may also make huge dents in the check­books of the defen­dants involved.

It’s easy to be reminded of that McDonalds cof­fee law­suit in 1994, when a woman named Stella Liebeck sued the com­pany after spilling hot cof­fee on her lap.

The evi­dence pre­sented dur­ing the trial con­vinced the jury that, despite already hav­ing a label present on the cup, the tem­per­a­ture of the cof­fee was unrea­son­ably high and that McDonalds would have to cough up some “McDough” to cover Liebeck’s med­ical costs.

Liebeck suf­fered third degree burns over 6 per­cent of her body after the scald­ing 190° F “McCoffee” spilled onto her lap. The jury in the trial, after being pre­sented with a book­let of over 700 pre­vi­ously filed com­plaints to the cor­po­ra­tion about the tem­per­a­ture that the cof­fee, awarded Liebeck the ini­tial amount of $2.86 mil­lion dol­lars. It is rumored that this amount was the approx­i­mate rev­enue McDonalds receives for two days worth of cof­fee. Ultimately, this amount was low­ered by a judge to $640,000. In the end though, Liebeck ended up set­tling out of court with McDonalds for some undis­closed amount.

Unlike bring­ing suit against a multibillion-dollar cor­po­ra­tion for cof­fee so hot that spilling it on one’s self incurs third degree burns and hos­pi­tal treat­ment includ­ing skin grafts, Edwards is suing a zoo and the orga­ni­za­tion that man­ages it.

The Chicago Zoological Society (CZS), unlike some omi­nous cor­po­rate giant, ded­i­cates its efforts to “inspire con­ser­va­tion lead­er­ship by con­nect­ing peo­ple with wildlife and nature,” accord­ing to their website.

The CZS is well known for sup­port­ing con­ser­va­tion efforts and research around the globe. The orga­ni­za­tion also funds and orga­nizes The Center for Conservation Leaders. The cen­ter orga­nizes out­reach pro­grams that do every­thing rang­ing from sci­en­tific dis­cov­ery pro­grams for tod­dlers, vol­un­teer intern­ships for col­lege and high school stu­dents, to pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment pro­grams for envi­ron­men­tally minded researchers and edu­ca­tors.
Edwards is fil­ing the $50,000 suit in Illois’ Circuit Court in Cook County for lost wages, med­ical expenses and the “emo­tional trauma” she suf­fered at the tyran­ni­cal fins of the bot­tlenose dol­phins and due to the zoo’s alleged negligence.

I am not against hold­ing cor­po­ra­tions account­able when they are neg­li­gent but with cer­tain activ­i­ties there is assumed some per­sonal risk. Individuals are respon­si­ble for assess­ing this risk and act­ing as they feel would be best for their per­sonal safety. Steps becom­ing wet and slip­pery is a pre­dictable and rea­son­able result of a dol­phin show at a zoo. I can only hope that if this goes to trial a jury awards this woman noth­ing but the sug­ges­tion to watch her step and get some com­mon sense.

Maintaing good health on cam­pus can be dif­fi­cult. Taking care of your­self by mak­ing smart choices can keep you in good spir­its and in good health this semester.

Stay Rested

A sparatic sleep sched­ule or sleep depri­va­tion is a com­mon occur­rence among stu­dents. A study pub­lished in the Journal of Adolescent Health on Aug 10 found that less than one-third of the 1,125 stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing got the sleep they need for their age.

Inadequate sleep is not unique to col­lege stu­dents and can seri­ous affects at any age. . Lack of sleep may be related to obe­sity, dia­betes, and immune sys­tem dys­func­tion accord­ing to Harvard Magazine Article, Deep into sleep.

Though the func­tion of sleep is still unknown, it has long been thought to be inte­gral to the process of learn­ing and mem­ory. A study from St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. found a cor­re­la­tion between grade point aver­age and sleep depri­va­tion amoung par­tic­i­pants. Pamela Thacher, who wrote the study exam­ined the sleep­ing pat­terns and tran­scripts of 111 stu­dents to see the cor­re­la­tion between sleep and their GPAs. Thacher was later quoted by USA Today say­ing, “Many stu­dents believe that it’s a “rite of pas­sage” to stay up all night dur­ing col­lege and that “it’s kind of fun” but “if you use all-nighters, your GPA is slightly lower on aver­age.” “Pulling all-nighters com­pro­mises your (over­all) sleep” and makes it dif­fi­cult to reach full aca­d­e­mic potential.”

Sleep Tips for College Students

Most adults need at least eight hours of sleep each night, though some may need up to ten. Getting a bet­ter night’s sleep may be eas­ier said than done, but small steps go a long way towards bet­ter, more rest­ful sleep.

• Review your class, work, study, and play sched­ule. See what changes need to be made to ensure you get eight hours of sleep each night.
• Avoid stim­u­lants like caf­feine and nico­tine. The stim­u­lat­ing effects of caf­feine in cof­fee, colas, teas, and choco­late can take as long as 8 hours to wear off fully.
• Have a good sleep­ing envi­ron­ment. Get rid of any­thing that might dis­tract you from sleep, such as noises or bright lights. — Stick to a sleep sched­ule. Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day — even on the weekends.

**Courtesy of the United States Center for dis­ease con­trol and prevention

Stop Procrastinating

Putting things off to the last minute should be a last resort and not a reg­u­lar habit. Procrastination may lead to unnec­es­sary stress, which can have seri­ous effects. Stress has been linked to a slew of health con­di­tions span­ning from acne and pso­ri­a­sis flare-ups, to more severe prob­lems like high blood pres­sure and blood clotting.

The “I’ll do right after I…” men­tal­ity, is one most of us are guilty of from one time to another, but sim­ply sched­ul­ing your day or using a weekly plan­ner can go a long way to fight off the temp­ta­tion to pro­cras­ti­nate. For projects with far out dead­lines, try mak­ing an “unsched­ule,” work­ing back­wards from the dead­line and decid­ing what por­tion of a project you will have done by what date.

Another way to fight the urge to “do it later” is to rec­og­nize when you actively search for things to do instead of the task in ques­tion. Checking your email or Facebook page and get­ting the sud­den inspi­ra­tion to do some long neglected spring clean­ing will not help you make head­way on that 50 pages of assigned reading.

Eat health­fully, this includes eat­ing breakfast

Breakfast is not just for kids and the Mayo Clinic can dis­cuss why. According to an arti­cle by nutri­tion­ist and reg­is­tered dietit­ian Katherine Zeratsky, eat­ing break­fast helps to restore blood sugar and can help increase daily phys­i­cal activ­ity levels.

“Eating break­fast reduces your hunger later in the day, mak­ing it eas­ier to avoid overeat­ing,” says Zeratsky .

Healthy options in din­ing halls at Ferris State are avail­able and may help per­suade even the most veggie-averse of diner-goers. Taking advan­tage of the salad bar as well as The Rock’s new Mongo-Grill may help “health­ify” your cam­pus din­ing experience.

One of the most seri­ous tests of will though, occurs out­side of the din­ing halls. Frozen din­ers, fast food, and trips to the vend­ing machine offer imme­di­ate and inex­pen­sive options that many find too tempt­ing to resist. Planning meals and pack­ing healthy snacks like fruit for between meals can help pre­vent a poten­tially dis­as­trous drive through run.

Get your exercise

The recre­ation facil­i­ties on cam­pus are a great way to get your daily dose of phys­i­cal activ­ity. Students pay an activ­ity fee each semes­ter to use both the UREC and the Raquet facil­ity. With all fees paid for in tuition, there is lit­tle excuse for stu­dents to not take advan­tage of this amenity.

If a time crunch is a prob­lem, try incor­po­rat­ing a trip to the gym into your daily class sched­ule or as part of a lunch break.

Lacking moti­va­tion? Try drag­ging a friend along with you. A work­out buddy can help to keep you account­able for and on-track with your fit­ness goals. For adults the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention rec­om­mends at least 150 min­utes of moderate-intensity aro­bic activ­ity every week along with muscle-strengthening exer­cise that work all of the major mus­cle groups at least twice a week.