Although I’m a junior now, the feeling of receiving a care package from home will never get old.  Getting a care package can be a life saver, especially if your budget is tight. Additionally, it’s a sign that someone from home cares for you and your well-being. The next time a family member asks what you’d like in a care package, here are some items you should make sure they write down. Snacks Chips, health bars, cookies, you name it. Homemade snacks are an added bonus, but you’re running the risk of these delicacies being crushed en route to your residence and simply becoming crumbs. Laundry…

It’s sometimes an incredibly difficult transition for foreign college students to adapt to their brand new culture. Many American students steer away from foreign students because they may behave quite differently than they do. This shouldn’t be the case, and many colleges across the country have programs established for foreign students to integrate more easily. Marquette’s program is called Global Village, which allows domestic students the opportunity to stay on a special apartment floor with foreign students to assist them with the cultural transition. Activities may include going to …

I turned 21 on Sunday. Yes, it’s been a long time coming and with the one more year of life comes many new opportunities. As college students, however, we must not mess things up for ourselves with these newfound freedoms. What do I mean by that? Though you’ve heard it maybe hundreds of times in commercials, I still want to remind you to drink responsibly. Your (real) ID allows you to buy a round for everyone, but it’s important to wake up the next morning and know where exactly you bought those drinks.  Supplying alcohol to minors is becoming a large problem on campus grounds. Marquette …

Welcome to a brand new school year! I am back with some more ideas on how to make your college experience simpler. This week, let’s discuss apartment life. Making the transition from dorm life to the apartment life is a pretty fluid one, if you’re ready for it. If this is the year you are moving out of your parents’ house or your college dormitory and into your own place, have no fear: if you approach the move correctly, it can be a truly rewarding experience. I have been living in my new apartment for about a week now and I can already see a few similarities and differences between this and …

They say getting there is half the fun, so why not soak up all that “getting there” has to offer? I rode the commuter rail to visit a friend a while ago, and I must admit that I was a little distraught upon noticing that 90 percent of the passengers were typing away on their cell phones or other miniscule devices for the great majority of the time. A train passenger has many options to entertain him or herself during the trip… … How about just staring out the window? The physical train itself has no clock, no screen and no price tag, and you already pay for the ride, so you might as well milk…

For us bookworms, summer presents the perfect opportunity to catch up on reading and grants us the ability to escape to a land of ‘befores.’ Before the cell phone was invented. Before the world population was 7 billion. Before, well, the world as we know it in 2012. The journey to the land of ‘befores’ has taken me to Victorian England. Lords, ladies, earls, viscounts, revolutionary ideas – it was the age of an unstoppable empire with charms all its own. At the heart of the Industrial Revolution, the Victorian era bridged the gap between rural and recent. In our world of ‘I wanted it …

I’ve been a fan of jigsaw puzzles for most of my 18 years. They’re fun. They pass the time. I used to work on a puzzle for about 5 minutes each morning while waiting for the school bus. They’ve reminded me that a little bit of work at a time pays off in the end. And these little pieces have much more to say:   Sometimes it takes a little sifting through the box to find the right answer. We can’t afford to be discouraged by trying piece by piece by piece, only to have none of the apparent candidates work. The answer’s out there somewhere. Go and find it.   If something doesn’t fit, just turn …