Advice to students!

[Serial_Apologist]

My advice? Don't over-qualify for the low-paying job you'll be regarded as overqualified to be applying for and which in any case will not pay off your student debts.

[Dave2002]

No. 4 - thumbs-up for that one though, eh ams?

I go with that one. Odd that there's nothing about drinking or other recreational activity. Either Americans don't do those things, or they just don't want to talk about them.

For some (many) of us life is a random walk. Not sure that advice is ever really that much use. The person receiving it usually ignores it anyway, even if it is sound.

[vinteuil]

For some (many) of us life is a random walk.

"Random"? - as in "Random"???

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Random

[VodkaDilc]

Only got as far as No 2: "Call someone you love back home a few times a week, even if just for a few minutes." I think it only occurred to me to call home a few times over three years as an undergraduate. Trunk calls were expensive and beer money was short.

I gather that in these days of mobile phones, daily or even hourly parental contact is the norm. I even believe that some parents phone lecturers to berate them for giving their budding genius low marks for an essay. At that point, I really would have curled into a ball and disappeared; like gurnemanz, my phone calls were limited. Has anything been gained through the invention of the mobile phone?

[Ockeghem's Razor]

When I was a bejant (1967) the one piece of advice I was given by my senior man was, 'Always drink lots of water before you go to bed.' Very helpful.

[Dave2002]

"Random"? - as in "Random"???

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Random

Thanks for educating me!

[Richard Tarleton]

But this was a college where, when it was proposed to install the occasional bathroom on some of the staircases, an elderly don said "But why? The young gentlemen are only with us for eight weeks... ".

This reminds me of a JCR meeting in my college in the same town (late 60s) where someone complained about the distance to the nearest loo on cold nights. An old hand replied "What's the problem? There's a wash basin in your room isn't there?"

[Belgrove]

... Odd that there's nothing about drinking or other recreational activity. Either Americans don't do those things, or they just don't want to talk about them.

Indeed binge drinking was a major problem in MIT frat houses a few years ago, resulting in a couple of deaths due to alcohol poisoning. The legal age to drink alcohol in Massachusetts is 21, with result that much drinking by students in Boston and Cambridge is forced 'underground'.

[Petrushka]

This reminds me of a JCR meeting in my college in the same town (late 60s) where someone complained about the distance to the nearest loo on cold nights. An old hand replied "What's the problem? There's a wash basin in your room isn't there?"

But what about the paper?

[Richard Tarleton]

But what about the paper?

This was meant purely for, erm, liquid offerings.

[Flosshilde]

A lot of the advice seems to me to be quite sound & sensible. Pointless, though, as students know everything & don't feel the need to take advice from their elders & betters . Doesn't he say at some point 'make mistakes'? Which would rather contradict the idea of giving, & taking, advice

[Dave2002]

This was meant purely for, erm, liquid offerings.

Reminds me of this film - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066494/
Yuk!