#Review: 77 Things You Absolutely Have To Do Before You Finish College

Book Title: 77 Things You Absolutely Have To Do Before You Finish College
Author:  Halley Bondy |Website| Twitter| Facebook|

Publisher: Zest Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Genre: Non Fiction College/High School
Series/Stand Alone: Stand Alone
Format: Paperback

Cost: $14.99

Pages: 192

How I got it: Publisher

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Publisher
Publication Date: 3/11/2014
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Synopsis:

College is about way more than just frats and finals: It’s also a time when students can learn new skills, encounter different cultures, test out potential careers, and take a stab at something new just because it sounds cool. And in order to leave college a better, smarter, and more interesting person than you were when you started out, all you need is an open mind, a willing spirit, and (of course) this book! The 77 entries included here cover everything from negotiating the terms of an apartment rental to attending a school-sponsored lecture event to hosting a movie marathon – and supplemental sidebars provide bonus tips for doing everything cheaply and well. (Oh, but remember: The most important thing to do? Graduate!)

As I'm a older college student ( I don't ever want to leave);  I passed this book on to my sisters who are (younger & traditional students) in college and a resident advisor friend in college and they all loved it and wanted to keep it.  This book has several sections that break down all the little things you should try to accomplish while in college outside of you know actually attending your classes.  Some of the entries include:

• starting your own on campus club
• Making your dorm room your personal temple
• Taking a road trip
• Getting an internship

I had done many of them while in college and my friends & sisters just left on a road trip *too cool right??*.  This book gave really good advice, some of which I wish I had known while in college. Just to see I counted I had done a total of 17 of them.  Some of them include:

• Find & Rent an Apartment:   I lived with my sister during her junior & senior years.  Which was the first & second year of my second degree.  Awesomeness personified.
• Learn To Cook One Meal Perfectly: I took cooking lessons from my mother (a former home economics teacher) and learnt several staying alive meals.  
• Join a Political Campaign:  my freshman year at college I joined in a political campaign, making signs, & being a part of the student ground force. It wasn't until later that I realized I had joined the campaign for a different party than my family. I mostly did it because all my friends (read boy I was crushing on hard) and sorors were, so I joined up. I really had no idea what the candidate stood for.  I should have known something was up when they starting making a big deal around campus about the fact that I was a Black girl in their campaign and in the local paper. If you can't figure it out by that I'm not telling. Let's chalk it up to being young, dumb (sheltered, read here sheltered, ok) and attending a Catholic College, <~~~ should have been my first clue that something was up. Learnt a valuable lesson of doing my research even when a cute boy is involved. So... thanks for that, at least.
• Spend quality time in the library without doing homework: To pledge to my sorority we had to have a minimum of 20 hours in the library. You signed in and stopped by the Sorority room and let them see you. I spent a lot of hours in that library not doing anything but walking the stacks and hiding out in the media room watching movies because I was never one to wait to do the homework assigned. I was pretty much always ahead in my classes. I learnt a lot that semester reading random books on new subjects and talking to the older librarians. Yeah fun times.

There are a ton more of these fun little nuggets to read and use.  They suggest a few ways to avoid pitfalls and how to make the most of the suggestions. It's very resourceful and reminds me of a book for adults that I love, it's called Oh Solo Mia ( a travel/life guide for women, showing how to have fun solo).  We all (everyone who read it) agreed that this book was a wonderful resource for college kids and would help to round out their experiences far more than going it alone would.

Even with all this fun stuff, it does have a few things missing. Many of the suggestions are for students who are traditional (young, no responsibilities, live on campus), very few take into account non traditional students (commuters, adults, or even young ones with responsibilities outside of school).  The body & health sections are however good as well as the sections geared towards helping you to prep for leaving school. Like how to round out your wardrobe (this I learnt from my sorority, but not everyone had this resource, eventually we convinced the school to give it as part of the senior seminar, that took place before graduation).

It has a great little section on social media, I wish they got to the kids in high school so they wouldn't have to do the clean up but hey you live and learn right??  I would recommend this as a book for incoming freshman and again as juniors so they know to fix whatever they haven't taken advantage of yet.

Enter Zest Gvieaway for a chance to win a copy for yourself or a teenager you know.

 ★★★★☆

Happy Reading