Online Student Survival Guide

First, let’s set aside the insanely inefficient circling want ads in the newspaper, and carpet bombing every employer within a 5-10 mile radius with your résumé. That’s about getting a job, any job, and purely expedient when you’re between everything flowing out in monthly bills and day to day expenses and next to nothing flowing back into your bank accounts (plural, as in checking and savings).

Instead, let’s do a little ’strategery’ – like mapping out the next 50 years or so of your life! There’s nothing on the boob-tube worth watching anyhow with all the reruns, and you cannot do anything about the news – or the apocalyptic terms in which it is always presented. With the late fall and early winter changes forcing you inside, this is a great way to spend an otherwise dreary afternoon, and it just might change your life for the better. We’ll assume that you know and can do what your college degree indicates – unfortunatly, that is NOT always the case, so if the shoe fits…

Not to be maudlin, but the best place to begin is at your funeral way, way off in the distant future. How to you want your obituary to read? What do you want to accomplish? Then simply plan backward, with each step practically screaming what had to obviously come before that, until you reach where you are today.

If you want to be rich and successful, you either have to born into a wealthy family, win the lottery, or somehow earn it. My guess is that most of us will have to settle for the latter.

For the traditional student, with a thin résumé, I recommend Alexandra Levit’s They don’t teach corporate in college, and for all for all entering freshmen, regardless of your major or the delivery mode for the instruction, Bill Coplin’s 10 things employers want you to learn in college. These will tell you in detail I simply don’t have the space for here the knowledge and skills you will need along the way:

• establishing a work ethic
• staying fit and healthy
• verbal communication skills
• written communication skills
• working with your peers and working in teams
• leadership
• gathering information
• quantitative skills
• asking the right questions
• solving problems

If you need inspiration or guidance, it’s all around you – all you have to do is check the perennially popular ’self-help’ books at your local library or bookstore. Obviously, some are better than others, but I have no reservations about recommending classics that have stood the tests of time like Napoleon Hill’s Think and grow rich and Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people, or Anthony Robbins’ Awaken the giant within and Unlimited power. Achieve your dreams: Six steps to accomplish your goals and resolutions by Susan M. Heathfield is also an excellent place to get started online. You can follow the links there, or Google to your hearts content.

The key is that this is an ongoing process, not an event; you’ve got to put it in writing. You’ve got to keep revising and updating it. You’ve got to keep moving forward, adding to your knowledge and experience, adding and improving your skills. You’ve also got to be honest with yourself, not choose goals and careers to please mom and dad or impress your friends. That’s the whole point of starting at the end and working backward. Was this the life you really wanted? You can change any of that now, but you won’t be able to then.