Most new college students can’t wait to be on their own. They want to make their own decisions, doing what they want, when they want and how they want. Many new college students also receive a rude awakening when the realization hits home that they truly are on their own. Mom isn’t there to make sure that they get out of bed and go to school or that they have clean clothes to wear. Professors aren’t quite as forgiving as high school teachers when assignment deadlines are missed. Dad isn’t there to provide the few extra bucks needed to satisfy that pizza craving at two o’clock in the morning.

“I had no idea how to do laundry,” said Lauren Morgan, a sophomore at the University of Arkansas. “My mom had always done that for me. It was so embarrassing because I had to ask other people in the laundry room how to work the washer and dryer.”

It’s not too late to become independent as you begin college this semester. Start taking the following steps to make that first year away from home as successful as possible.

Learn how to budget – Plan on putting a set amount in savings each month, and then open a checking account and balance your checkbook diligently. There’s nothing worse than a $10 purchase turning into a $50 purchase because you bounced a check and have to pay a returned check fee.

Find a part-time job – Find this on your own. Don’t allow your parents to pull strings for you. If they have a connection, find out the person’s contact information and get in touch with them yourself.

Introduce yourself to the washer and dryer – The last thing you need is for all of your large white shirts to become extra small pink shirts. Learn how to sort laundry by color and how to use proper water temperatures to protect your clothes – and your pride.

Become a planner – Keep yourself on a schedule with a day planner or PDA. Don’t expect your parents to wake you up and tell you when and where you need to be. Keep track of assignment due dates, activities and meetings. Schedule time during the week for studying so you’re able to relax and enjoy the weekends.

Taking these steps will put you on the fast track to personal independence. You might even end up being the person your roommate goes to when they need to turn on the washer.

Living on campus was an experience. It was fun and exciting … and it was really, really hard.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to go. I knew that living on-campus was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Still, the idea of moving into a building full of strangers scared the snot out of me.

I’d lived in my hometown for 18 of my 19 years of life. I knew I would miss my friends and family and the comfort zone I’d been cocooned in. To top it off, I was shy. Really shy. The thought of being surrounded 24/7 by people I didn’t know gave me butterflies the size of 747’s.

But you know what? Dorm living was one of the best experiences of my life.

Within the first week my dorm room felt at home. I met people on my floor, joined the residence hall governing board, and made some fantastic friends. Friends I still keep in touch with. Friends I’ve watched graduate, get their first post-college jobs, get married and move around the country.

Moving in wasn’t easy. It took courage and a huge leap of faith in myself. But because I did it, I grew in ways I never expected. I learned I could thrive in a new place. I learned I could turn strangers into friends and I learned I was stronger than I thought possible.

That’s what college will be about for you. Not just attending classes and taking tests, but figuring out who you are. I bet you’ll like what you find.

Your college instructors will be one of the best parts of your college experience. I was lucky. I had several fantastic teachers in high school. But the instructors I had in college took the student-teacher relationship to a new level. I learned things about real life and the work place that few (if any) textbooks will cover.

One of my copyediting instructors, who’d spent years as a newspaper editor, helped me realize that I didn’t want a career in journalism. An advertising instructor helped my class visualize life in a big city ad agency. I even had an instructor sit down with me and a friend to help us plan a Spring Break trip to New York City.

All of your instructors will have office hours. This is time they are available to meet with their students, to answer questions, or to just talk. Take advantage of those times. Make sure you’re more than a name on a roster of students. Your teachers are where they are because they know their subjects inside and out. They want to share that knowledge with you.

To call my college search disorganized would be an understatement. I had no idea where I wanted to go. I vaguely understood that out-of-state tuition was more expensive, so I decided to look only in my home state. Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow things down much.

The University of Texas lists 45 colleges and universities in my state. I requested information from at least 30 of them. Every day our mailbox was full. I got letters from admissions departments, course catalogues, and brochures with photographs of dorm rooms and football stadiums. For a two-month period, my family refused to bring the mail in. The postman even shot glares at our house while he filled the mailbox.

If I had to lug that stuff through our neighborhood, I would have hated me too.

The thing, is I didn’t need to request information from all of these places. Had I spent a little more time at the beginning figuring out what I wanted, I would have ruled half of those schools out.

I wanted to move away from home. That meant any schools within an hour drive could have been crossed off the list. I knew I wanted to major or minor in creative writing. A lot of schools don’t offer that. I wanted a medium to large university, so the materials from the tiny liberal arts colleges were wasted on me.

There are thousands of schools out there. If you try to look at all of them, you’ll still be visiting colleges when your friends are graduating with Master’s degrees. Before you start lining up campus visits and requesting packets of information, take the time to figure out what you really want from your college experience. Are you looking for a large student body? Will you need to live at home while you attend school? Do you want a school with a marching band and an awesome art program?

The school you’re looking for is out there. Just remember, there’s a lot you can do to make it easier to find.

The first person to take an interest in me, academically, was a wiry, red-headed woman named Alice Bennett. She was a journalism instructor at Washington High School – a public school in an area where the convenience store clerks stood behind bulletproof glass and front doors were dead-bolted at dusk.

For a woman so small (and so plain), her personality was intimidating at times. One look from her could cut you in half – a characteristic that subdued even the most misbehaving students.

I came to her classroom my junior year at the encouragement of a friend who was on the newspaper staff. Unlike almost everyone else I knew, I had shown talent for absolutely nothing, so I agreed to take Newspaper I. I wrote a couple of stories that I really enjoyed, made some friends, and learned about landmark legal cases in the field of journalism – which I have since forgotten.

In Newspaper I, Mrs. Bennett taught us more than how to write; she taught us why to write. Of course, the curriculum required some background on taking notes and asking appropriate interview questions, but for the most part our focus was on finding the souls of people in our stories and bringing out their voices. Words on paper struck me in the way they could bring eloquence to the simplest scene or heal the gravest tragedy.

Her lessons inspired something in me that began coming through in the thin school newspapers that were published three times a year. From the handful of stories I wrote, she probably got 1,500 words out of me that appeared in print, tops. But in those stories she found enough proof to persuade me into a career in journalism.

This issue of KEY is filled with articles meant to help guide you along your path to furthering your education. Our story about credit cards explains the world of credit and clarifies the offers you’ll soon be finding in your mailbox. The ACT section provides helpful information on the financial aid process and applying for scholarships. And our resident writing expert lays out seven steps for improving your writing for college entrance exams.

Keep reading. Hopefully in this magazine you will find out something about yourself – and where you’re going. If you consider your door to a better future locked, relax. The KEY may be in the following pages.

Best wishes,

Kevin Kuzma
Editor

Hi everyone. My name is Erin, and I’m a senior editor for KEY magazine. Welcome to my blog. I was chosen to kick off KEY’s first-ever interactive feature (this blog) because I’ve spend nearly three years writing and reporting about postsecondary education.

Whether you’re a sophomore just starting to think about college, or a senior deciding between your top two schools, this blog is for you. Planning for life after high school is exciting, but it can be confusing too. Information and ideas are coming from every direction. Everyone, from your best friend to your parents to the guy next door, has an opinion of what you should do.

But the thing is, this is YOUR life. You’re reaching a place where it’s time for you to figure out what you want. To decide who you want to be.

Sound scary? It is a little. But it’s also sure to be one of the best experiences of your life.

So what makes me the right person to talk to about your college questions? First, I’ve been there. I remember my junior and senior years of high school. I remember wondering what was waiting for me after graduation. I remember thinking “What do I want to do?” and “What if I pick the wrong college?” To be honest, I had no clue what I was doing. Everything turned out fine in the end … but I could have saved myself (and my parents) some time and money if I had a resource like KEY.

I’m in the unique position of being able to talk to you about both community colleges and four-year universities. I spent two years at the community college in my home-town before moving away to get my bachelor’s degree. If you’re not sure which direction you want to take, I can help you out.

We hope you like KEY’s fun new design and features. Check back a couple times a week to see what topics I’m covering. From time to time, some of our other editors will pipe in too. Please feel free to post comments about the blog or suggest ideas for articles you’d like to see us cover, both here and in the magazine.

At a time when your life is changing, we’re here for you as an experienced, unbiased voice, helping answer your questions and preparing your for next phase of your life.