If you’re anything like me, that stuff is awesome… for the first two weeks.  Then it gets boring.  Time maximization fiends like myself hate time-not-properly-utilized.  While you shouldn’t focus completely on intellectual pursuits, you should keep your mind relatively sharp and, if you’re able, make some professional connections.  Here’s how:

1.  See if you can get a “Winternship”

It may be late in the game for this sort of thing, and few if any financial firms or companies want a 3-week employee.  But if you’re into politics or working for charities/non-profits, there are opportunities to volunteer locally.  I know at least three CMC students– Abe Shimm ’10, Isaac Goldberg ’10 and myself– who, in the winter of the Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada Democratic caucuses/primaries, went to these states, respectively, and interned for the Obama campaign.  We were all offered full time jobs, in large part due to contacts we made during those few short weeks.

Three weeks for an internship may not seem like a long time– it may not even seem worth it.  But you can accomplish a lot (three weeks at a homeless shelter provides tremendous support, especially during the cold, holiday season), and network.  How long do you really think it takes a boss to make an impression of you? (Hint: not long)  If you correctly anticipate that the summer job and internship markets will be competitive, having contacts in organizations beforehand is going to help you out.  So see what might be available in your area; remember, you are well-educated free labor.  There should be someone around who wants that.

2.  Follow the News
Already this break, there’s been national commotion about school choice at Beverly Hills High School (which the Port Side’s Michelle Kahn ’12 blogged about), health care reform got 60 votes in the Senate, the President made a “meaningful” deal in Copenhagen, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) made an ass out of himself in Copenhagen, and his fellow Republican Oklahoman Senator Tom Coburn asked America to pray for illness or worse to befall Senate Democrats.  There’s an easy way to follow news from multiple sources (though unlike the Google tasks feature I mentioned before, this is not yet supported by our CMC mail accounts).

It’s called Google Reader.  If you have a Gmail account, at the very top there is a link that says “Reader.”  Click on it and add the RSS feeds of your favorite sites.  You can now read various outlets in a one-stop-shopping method.  My recommendations:

• The New York Times
• The International Herald Tribune
• The Freakonomics Blog – Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner and others blog about current issues from the Freakonomics lens
• The Huffington Post – a lefty, sometimes nutty, news source
• FiveThirtyEight – left of center, but pretty solid political analysis
• Politico – slightly right of center politics news
• National Review Online – a righty, sometimes nutty, news source
• The Forum
• The Compass

Pick all, or a few, to follow.  Just keep your mind sharp and stay up on current events.

3.  Make a Reading List/Use Your Community Resources
Aside from reading the news, there are a lot of good books you should read.  I didn’t have time for pleasure reading during the semester, but my break list includes:

• Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman
• The Conscience of a Liberal, Paul Krugman
• The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
• Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell

Others to consider:

• (Super) Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner
• Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
• The Audacity to Win, David Plouffe
• Going Rogue, Sarah Palin (…because we all need a good laugh)

You don’t have to buy these books– just go to your local public library.  On that same note, if you don’t want to pay for a one month gym membership, see if you can work out at your high school.

4.  Get a Jump on Next Semester

If you’re exceptionally bored and don’t find becoming a broadly more educated person appealing, you can start reading for next semester.  Most, if not all, professors have course books already listed, and if you ask for a syllabus you can see which readings are coming up and start to get ahead.

5.  Work on Resumes/Cover Letters/Summer Internship Applications

It’s scary to think, but summer is coming up soon and summer internships need to be applied for and accepted even sooner.  For seniors, or anyone looking for employment, dust off the CV (when do you stop calling it a resume and start calling it a CV?), write a generic cover letter you can tweak for specific applications, and search through different organizations to see who is offering internships.  As I detailed in my last post, Google tasks can be helpful here.  Figure out when each application is due, what each application requires, and when you will hear back.  Put it in a Google task so you’ll have it on hand.

Hell, Google task everything you want to accomplish this break.  Striking through an accomplished task feels pretty awesome.

So get your rest in. Pay off that “sleep debt.”  You’ve worked hard and deserve relaxation.  But don’t let your mind dull, and don’t waste this time.

If you’ve locked up “A”s, congratulations.  But the type of “A” you earn is certainly still up for grabs, and so you need to crush your finals.  No matter where you are on the grade spectrum, your final will move you up or down.  And so you need to start planning, and studying–now.

Here are a few tips:

1.  Make a Time Line

You don’t have the same amount of time to study for all of your finals, and you need to get really good at time management really quickly.  If you have a Money and Banking final on Saturday the 12th, that needs to occupy your most immediate attention.  If your last two finals are on, say, the 14th and the 17th, you shouldn’t study for the Dec 17th final much, if at all, until Dec 15th.  So make a time line of due dates, assess which subjects require the most attention and how much time you’ll be able to devote to each.

2.  Plan On Office Hours

For sake of argument, let’s say you need 15 hours of “quality time” with each subject to feel confident for the final.  If studying alone for one hour prepares you 1/15 of the way, that’s great.  But generally speaking, going to office hours will give you more bang for your buck – one hour spent at office hours may be able to prepare you 2 or 3 times as much as one hour studying on your own, especially if you come knowing what you don’t understand.  Even if you get most of the material, it doesn’t hurt to clarify more complex topics, talk about where you stand in the class, and even what you might need on the final to land a certain grade for the course.

You may be mathematically eliminated from an “A” (or need something like a 98 on the final), but may be in a position where you’d need to tank to get a “B+.”  If so, don’t spend so much time studying for that course – any marginal benefit from studying is negligible compared to classes where you may be able to move up or down.  Budget your time accordingly.

Also, many teachers are willing to place less weight on a poor mark received early in the semester and more weight on later grades.  Talk to them and see what you can weasel out.

3.  Make a to-do List

You now know when things are coming up, what classes require what proportion of your attention, and when you need to get into office hours.  Now budget your time.  Schedule flexibility is usually an asset, but you want to be a hard-ass with yourself.  Make a plan for the next few weeks saying when you will study for what, when you will go to office hours, when you will meet with a study group, when you will reach certain benchmarks, etc.  Remember, soon is not a time and some is not a number – be specific with your game plan and you’ll be more successful.

Fortunately, the Gmail client CMC uses has “Google Tasks” functionality.  Look on the left side of your email and click the “Tasks” link.  An editable box will appear on your screen where you can list what you need to do and, with great satisfaction, cross off your accomplishments.

4.  Learn from the Past

Right before Thanksgiving “break,” many students had a run of exams simulating what finals will look like.  Look back and ask yourself a few questions:  How well do you do on less than ideal sleep?  How much did you over-study for one exam and under-study for another?  Could you have allocated your time more efficiently?  How have your academic experiences during the semester taught you not only the course content, but about how to do well on graded material for a certain class?  How similar are practice exams to the real thing?  Think, figure it out and adjust what needs to be adjusted.

5.  Crush it

Get down to business.  Work your ass off.  Study hard.  Do well.

So for everyone at CMC, good luck with finals!  Set a solid game plan and I’m sure you’ll have a much easier go of it.

If the recent controversy over Bob McDonnell’s senior thesis is any indication, public figures will be subject to increasingly thorough vetting of their academic careers and papers in the future and everything we write, from Facebook notes to essays, will be fair game.

We’ve heard cautionary tales of College students not getting jobs due to idiotic Facebook pictures.  But this has a simple solution – remove the pictures.  Removing does no harm and keeping offers no help.

But in raising controversial issues and voicing opinions, there is a harm associated with timidity- the campus environment and conversation is not as engaging.  Say what you will about Charles Johnson, CMC ’11, but at least he has the balls to write what he thinks and the campus discussion, by and large, is better for it.

And so I’ve been thinking whether or not to officially brand myself as a “Democrat.”  Yes, I’m politically left of center but not by much (I’ve argued at CAP conferences in favor of school vouchers and against EFCA…).  While I run the blog for the Port Side, with the exception of Jonathan I’m easily the most conservative student on staff.  And so calling myself a Democrat?  That seems sketchy.

The advantages to not being branded are obvious – you seem to not have partisan entanglements and appear to come from a place of “rationality” and “moderation.”   In future job pursuits I wouldn’t be disqualified for my political beliefs.  Though one of my Facebook networks is “Obama for America,” I know enough moderates and even Republicans who worked on the campaign and voted for the man that I’m okay with it.  But recently I was appointed Platform Director for the California Young Democrats.

Why did I accept?  Because in the future I’d like to work in Government, and if I have to pick a team I pick not-Republican.  That leaves me with the Dems.  And so I’ve been sitting on my new email address, platform@youngdems.org, for some time.  If I join the Facebook network, I’m a Democrat.  Anyone searching my name will see that.

But maybe the path of least association isn’t the best path.  So I’ll be a Democrat – does that mean I can’t look rationally at an issue?  Does that mean I can’t be measured and moderate?  I would hope not.

So for those interested in potentially blogging, either for the Port Side or the Claremont Conservative, and for those who want to write controversial opinions but who are afraid of the google-search – sack up.  Down the line it probably won’t hurt to have an opinion so long as you can rationally defend it.  And if times change and public opinion changes, hopefully your employer will give you a chance to explain your thinking.  If not, he’s probably a douche and you probably don’t want to work for him anyway.  In the end, there are worse things to be disqualified for than having an opinion (and even when your opinion is unpopular, you can still raise $200,000 + in cash-on-hand overnight).

Did the roommate come to school with a shiny new iPhone? Are you coming down with a case of phone-envy?

Get an iPod Touch.  Apple just slashed costs so you can get one relatively inexpensively. The great thing about having an iPod Touch is that it negates the need for a SmartPhone.  Most of us are mostly on campus, which means we have wi-fi access.  Constant wi-fi + iTouch = free smart phone.  Instead of shelling out $80/month for one, get onto your family’s plan with a “Dumb” phone and use your free Smartphone.  You’ll save an obscene amount of money.